Comments on: Find Position of First Capital Letter in a String

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:07:00 +0000

You are quite welcome… I’m glad you got it to work for you. I am pretty sure it does everything you mentioned you wanted in your earlier response to Dick, but if I missed anything, or if you want something additional, please feel free to ask. You can do that here at this forum or you can email me directly at rickDOTnewsATverizonDOTnet (replace the upper case letters with the symbol they spell out).

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:14:00 +0000

@Rick

Not sure what was going on but tried it in a fresh document and worked like a treat. Thanks Heaps!

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:42:00 +0000

@Nick,

The code was tested before I posted it, so I know it works. The only thing I can think of is you copied my code to the wrong location. I'm guessing you put it in either a sheet or workbook module instead placing it in a standard module (Insert/Module for the VB editor's menu bar) where it needs to be. By the way, your first formula, as written, still won't work because the argument is text and you did not put quote marks around it... the second formula should work fine as written.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:03:00 +0000

umm can't get it to work.. getting a #Name error
I am using it as

=UpperOnly(Nick MANNING)

also tried

=UpperOnly(a1)

where A1 Contains the text Nick MANNING
What am i doing wrong?

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:55:00 +0000

@Nick,

Does this function do what you want?

Function UpperOnly(ByVal S As String) As String
Dim X As Long, Z As Long, Temp As String
For X = 1 To Len(S)
If LCase(Mid(S, X, 1)) = Mid(S, X, 1) Then Mid(S, X, 1) = " "
Next
For X = 1 To Len(S) - 1
If Mid(S, X, 2) Like "[! ][! ]" Then
S = Mid(S, X)
For Z = Len(S) - 1 To 1 Step -1
If Mid(S, Z, 2) Like "[! ][! ]" Then
UpperOnly = Left(S, Z + 1)
Exit Function
End If
Next
End If
Next
End Function

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Excellent – Thank you very much. I will need to modify it a little as I have a few European names and it catches accented charaters and also the Capitalised letter from the second word of two worded first names- John Paul SMITH returns P SMITH.
You response is fantasic and better than anything I have been able to find in months of posting and searching. Thanks again.

By: Dick Kusleika

Dick Kusleika — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:59:00 +0000

Function ReturnCaps(sInput As String, Optional lStart As Long = 1) As String

Dim i As Long
Dim sReturn As String

sReturn = Mid$(sInput, lStart, Len(sInput))

For i = Asc("a") To Asc("z")
sReturn = Replace$(sReturn, Chr$(i), "")
Next i

ReturnCaps = Trim(sReturn)

End Function

Use as =returncaps(A1,2)

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 03:47:00 +0000

How could I go about modifying this so I capture any ALL CAPS text in a string ie

Nick MANNING -- Result -- MANNING

Jack THE RIPPER -- Result --- THE RIPPER

Ben HILL J OFFER -- Result -- HILL J OFFER

The last example might be more difficult but one for the first two would be great.

Many thanks

Nick

By: rakhmat

rakhmat — Mon, 21 May 2007 12:47:00 +0000

can somebody help me, how to show/parse only the consonant character in excel
for example :
Asia Global Media ----> SGLBLMD

please email me the formula,

many thanks

Rakhmat

By: Charles Williams

Charles Williams — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:02:00 +0000

Fastest method seems to be a UDF using a Byte array. This function takes 16 millisecs for 2000 strings and 8 millisecs when coded as an array formula.

Public Function FirstCap(theRange As Range) As Long
Dim aByte() As Byte
Dim j As Long

FirstCap = -1
aByte = theRange.Value2
For j = 0 To UBound(aByte, 1) Step 2
If aByte(j) < 91 Then
If aByte(j) > 64 Then
FirstCap = (j + 2) / 2
Exit For
End If
End If
Next j
End Function

Overall the VBA UDFs and MOREFUNC are significantly faster (8 to 56 millisecs versus 320-380 millisecs) than the array formulae.

Tests were done on 2000 character strings length 26 with a single randomly selected upper case character. All timings in milliseconds using Range.calculate in manual calculate mode.

Timings in Millisecs:
Firstcap (Byte array) 16
AFirstcap (array function version of byte array) 8
If Mid(Cell.Value, FirstCap2, 1) Like "[A-Z]" 56
If Mid$(tmp, i, 1) Mid$(strInp, i, 1) Then 41
=MATCH(TRUE,ISERR(FIND(MID(A1,ROW($1:$255),1),LOWER(A1))),0) 323
Doug's array function 17
=MATCH(TRUE,ABS(CODE(MID(A1,ROW($1:$255),1))-77.5)