How to copy only clipped text in a cell OR delete multiple lines of characters from a specific point

[AnthonyMaffei]

Hi there! 

First time posting on here and I'm hoping I'll be able to get some help. 

I am using excel to load contact phone numbers I exported from google. The problem is that googles only format of this data is in individual html documents in a zipped folder. 

I was able to copy the path address and paste that into excel. From there, I used replace to remove the first few characters of the path to remove the unnecesary characters. 

However, I now need to remove the end portion of the file path which ends in .html so that I can use just the phone number in that character string. 

My only solution that isn't a solution really is to clip the text and then shrink the size of the column to only show the number. However, I can't copy and then paste JUST the data that is clipped. It copies the entire path. 

TLDR: Is there a way to copy only the first 10 digits or characters of a cell 

or alt TLDR: Is there a way to delete variable characters (like dates + times, which are different in each line) for multiple lines of data in excel 

Also if there's a better way to export the call data from voice ( i did all the research I can and found only 1 way to export the data and it's the prescribed method from google) please let me know! 

Thanks in advance for your help. 

[#2]

@AnthonyMaffei Anthony, you can create a new column to limit the text to 10 characters by using 

=left(A1,10) where A1 is the text you are trying to truncate - revise as appropriate.  This, then, could be copied and pasted as needed.  

While you may be limited to your export functionality, you are not limited by your import functionality.  It's very likely your data could be transformed during the import process using "Get Data" within the data menu to give you exactly the info you're looking for.  

If you'd be willing to share something representative of the data after removing any personal information I can show you.  If you'd prefer, you can PM me the file.