In cell B5, “Sebastian” is 9 characters, so the result is 3.
For example, =REPT(“x”,5) returns “xxxxx”.
LEN will also count characters in numbers, but number formatting is not included.
Pad text to equal length
To pad text to an equal length using another character, you can use a formula based on the REPT and LEN functions. In the example shown, a formula is used to append a variable number of asterisks (*) to values in column B so that the final result is always 12 characters in length. The formula in C5 is: =B5&REPT("*",12-LEN(B5))
