Using only standard spreadsheet text functions, explain how to extract the first initial and last name from a full name cell, formatted as 'Lastname, Firstname Middleinitial'.

To extract the first initial and last name from a cell containing a full name formatted as 'Lastname, Firstname Middleinitial' using only standard spreadsheet text functions, we will employ a combination of functions: FIND, LEFT, MID, LEN, and TRIM. Each function plays a specific role in isolating and retrieving the desired parts of the text string.First, let's address the extraction of the last name. The last name is located at the beginning of the string, preceding the comma. We need to identify the position of this comma to determine how many characters to extract from the left. The FIND function is used for this purpose. FIND searches for a specified text string within another text string and returns the starting position of the found string. For example, if cell A1 contains 'Smith, John D', FIND(",", A1) would return 6, as the comma is the sixth character.Once the comma's position is known, we can use the LEFT function. LEFT extracts a specified number of characters from the beginning (left side) of a text string. To get the last name, we tell LEFT to extract characters from the original string up to, but not including, the comma. So, if the comma is at position 6, we need 6 minus 1, or 5 characters. The formula for extracting the last name would be LEFT(A1, FIND(",", A1) - 1). Applying this to 'Smith, John D', LEFT("Smith, John D", 5) would result in 'Smith'. It is good practice to use the TRIM function to remove any potential leading or trailing spaces that might result from the extraction, although in this specific case it is less likely for the last name. The complete formula for the last name is TRIM(LEFT(A1, FIND(",", A1) - 1)).Next, we will extract the first initial. The first initial is the first character of the first name, which appears after the comma and a space. To isolate this, we first need to extract the portion of the string that contains the first name and middle initial. This part starts immediately after the comma and the subsequent space. If the comma is at position X, the relevant part starts at position X plus 2 (X for the comma, plus 1 for the space, plus 1 for the first character of the first name). The MID function is suitable for extracting characters from the middle of a text string. MID takes three arguments: the text string, the starting position, and the number of characters to extract. To get everything after the comma and space, we use FIND(",", A1) + 2 as the starting position. For the number of characters, we can use a sufficiently large number, such as the total length of the string, which is provided by the LEN function. LEN returns the number of characters in a text string. So, MID(A1, FIND(",", A1) + 2, LEN(A1)) will extract 'John D' from 'Smith, John D'.Once we have this intermediate string containing the first name and potentially the middle initial (e.g., 'John D'), we simply need the very first character of it to get the first initial. We can achieve this by applying the LEFT function to this intermediate string, requesting only one character. Combining these steps, the formula for the first initial is LEFT(MID(A1, FIND(",", A1) + 2, LEN(A1)), 1). For 'Smith, John D', MID(A1, 6 + 2, LEN(A1)) evaluates to 'John D', and then LEFT('John D', 1) evaluates to 'J'.