Text Level: Intermediate Available in: Excel 2007+
In this article Syntax Examples Example 1 Related functions CODE returns the number of the first character. It is the detective tool for “invisible” characters that break lookups: a non-breaking space shows up as 160, not 32.
Syntax
=CODE(text)
Argument
What it means
textText; only the first character counts.
Examples
Example 1
=CODE(RIGHT(A2))Reveal what the last character of a clean-looking cell really is.
CHAR · UNICODE · CLEAN · TRIM
📚 Part of the free Excel course: Beginner → Expert · Try it in the Formula Lab or ask the AI Helper .
Written by Atul Vij Atul (AJ) builds office-automation and local-first AI tools as Atulya AI, and works with Excel, SAP and Oracle EPM every day. He writes about the shortcuts, macros and automations that actually save time — plus the occasional wacky fact.
More posts by Atul → ← Previous YIELD Function in Excel: Bond Yield From Its PriceNext → VALUE Function in Excel: Convert Text to a Number✨ Ask AI about this article Stuck on a step? Ask a question and the AI answers using this article.
Your question about this article Model Auto — best model for the task GPT-OSS 120B — OpenAI · strongest reasoning · counts as 2 Llama 3.3 70B — Meta · fast, all-round Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B — Alibaba · best for code Gemma 4 26B — Google · clear explanations Mistral Small 3.1 — Mistral · quick GPT-OSS 20B — OpenAI · balanced Llama 4 Scout — Meta · newest Llama Gemma Sea Lion V4 27b — Aisingapore Glm 4.7 Flash — Zai-org Llama 3.1 8b — Meta Llama 3.2 3b — Meta Nemotron 3 120b A12b — Nvidia · counts as 2 Qwen3 30b A3b — Qwen Qwen3.8 27b — Qwen Qwq 32b — Qwen · counts as 2 Free · AI can be wrong Ask ✨
