Pulling parts of information from one cell and putting in another

[Mcobra41]

Bascially I have no clue how to do this and am not sure if it is possible. I
am try to pull from my long description to make a short description. This is
my long description in one cell

"An undercover FBI agent working as a legal clerk at a casino uncovers
illegal gambling activities in the small California desert town of 29 Palms,
but before he can turn in his report, his boss turns on him and hires one of
the best hit-men in the business to take him out. With the deal sealed and
payment in hand, the hit-man is on his way, but loses his bag of money to a
crazed security guard looking for a quick score. Now the hit-man has to track
down his target and get his money back. The bag is stolen from one pair of
greedy hands to another including a corrupt State Trooper and a waitress that
he loses his heart to.<br><br>Starring: Chris O'Donnell, Jeremy Davies,
Rachel Leigh Cook, Michael Rapaport, Bill Pullman, Keith David, Michael
Lerner, and Jon Polito.<br> Copyright 2003 Artisan Entertainment."


I want to pull the first line and the first line only from the long
description and place that in another cell so it would look like this

"An undercover FBI agent working as a legal clerk at a casino uncovers
illegal gambling activities in the small California desert town of 29 Palms,
but before he can turn in his report, his boss turns on him and hires one of
the best hit-men in the business to take him out."

The first period will end where i want the short description to stop
pulling. Is this something that is possible and if so can someone help me
with this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Ron Swinehart]

Try this:
=MID(A1,1,SEARCH(".",A1,1))
It should pull the text up to the first period. If there is a period in the
sentence (i.e. etc.) it will not work correctly.

 

[Mcobra41]

Ok I am not sure if I understand what you mean "If there is a period in the
sentence (i.e. etc.) it will not work correctly." So does this mean if
there is more than 1 period in the sentance it is not going to work
correctly? I tried the formula you gave to me and I get a circular error.
Maybe I am putting the wrong columns in, my long description is in column BA,
and my short description needs to go in column BD. This is the formula that
i got the error with. =MID(BA1,1,SEARCH(".",BD1,1))

The exact error is
"Microsoft Excel Cannont Calculate a formula. Cell References in the
formulat refer to the formula's result, creating a circular reference. Try
one of the following:
If you accidentally created the circular referece, click ok
to display the circular reference toolbar, point to toolbars on the view
menu, and then clicking curcular reference.

 

[swatsp0p]

In your desired cell, place this formula:

=LEFT(BA1,FIND(".",BA1))

adjust the BA1 references to match the cell containing your extended text.

If your 1st sentence contains any abbreviation such as "etc." or "e.g." the
"FIND" portion of the formula will only return text up to the period in the
abbreviation. No good way around this.