Suppose you have a name John Doe Smith and you want to extract the first name only. Put following formula assuming full name is in Cell A1.
Formula Way
=LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1&" ")-1)
Manual Way
Manual way will be useful when you have a long list of names.
A. Easy Way – Find and Replace Way
1. Select the column.
2. CTRL+H
3. In Find What: box, put a space followed by * (Hence, we need to put " *" without quotes)
4. Replace All
5. Now, you will have only First Name.
B. Text to Columns Way
1. Select the column
2. Data tab > Text to Columns
3. On Step 1 of 3, check Delimited and Next
4. On Step 2 of 3, check Space and Next
5. On Step 3 of 3, select 2nd column and check "Do not import column (skip). Do it for 3rd column also.
6. Finish and you have only first names in your column.
