Explanation
The LEN function is fully automatic. In the example, the formula in the active cell is:
=LEN(B5)
The LEN function simply counts all characters that appear in a cell. All characters are counted, including space characters, as you can see in cell C9.
Numbers
Numbers in Excel (including dates, times, currency, etc.) are often formatted with a number format. It's important to understand that the characters that make up numbers are counted in their raw form (i.e. number formatting is not included). For example, because Excel dates are serial numbers, the result in cell C11 is 5, since the date in B11 is is actually the number 42005.
Related formulas
Count total characters in a range
Count specific characters in text string
Related functions
LEN Function
The Excel LEN function returns the length of a given text string as the number of characters. LEN will also count characters in numbers, but number formatting is not included.
