LEFT (Primitive Spread Function) returns the first (or leftmost) characters from a text value.

SYNTAX:

LEFT(MyText, Num_chars)

REMARKS:

Arguments are as follows:

Argument Description 
MyText Text string that contains the characters you want to extract. 
Num_chars (Optional) Specifies how many characters you want to extract. 

The MyText argument can be a string, a formula that returns a string, or a reference to a cell containing a string.

Note the following about the Num_chars argument:

Num_chars must be greater than or equal to zero.
If Num_chars is greater than the length of text, LEFT returns all text.
If Num_chars is omitted, "1" is assumed. 

EXAMPLES:

LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)–1)
LEFT("TotalPrice") equals T
LEFT("Total Price", 5) equals Total