Replace first N characters of a cell with something else

---

In todays Blog post I will demonstrate how to replace the first N characters of the contents of a cell with something else.
​
Consider the data set below Containing a list of IDs all of which begin with CA. 

The goal is to relace the "CA" with "CAN". Here is how we could do tis using a formula.


=REPLACE(A2,1,2,"CAN") 

This formula begins the operation at the first character of the cell (A2,1, 2, "CAN") and replaces the first two characters (A2, 1, 2, "CAN") beginning from the First Cell with CAN. Therefore CA will be replaced with CAN once this formula is applied to the entire range.