Google Sheets FILTER, ISTEXT, ISNUMBER Functions | Extract only Text or Numeric Data | Tutorial

Use the Google Sheets FILTER and ISTEXT or FILTER and ISNUMBER functions to extract only text data or only numeric data respectively, from a spreadsheet data range. For example, say a spreadsheet column has text and numbers. If you wish to extract only the text, then the FILTER and ISTEXT functions combo can do the task.

You will have to use the ISTEXT function as the condition argument of FILTER to extract text data.

Let's look at the format of the FILTER function formula

=FILTER(range, condition1, [condition2], […])

Start the formula with an equal-to symbol.

FILTER is the name of the function.

range is the spreadsheet area that contains text and numeric data.

condition1 is the first condition that the range should satisfy.

condition2 is optional.

Here is the format of the ISTEXT and ISNUMBER function formulas:

=ISTEXT(value)

=ISNUMBER(value)

value can be, for example, a cell reference or a range.

ISTEXT and ISNUMBER will return TRUE, if value is text or a number respectively. Otherwise, ISTEXT and ISNUMBER will return FALSE, if value is not text or number respectively.

Consider the spreadsheet data that follows to extract, say only the text data. Assume this data is in the cells A6 to A13:

Rent
65%
Groceries
10%
Bills
20%
Other
5%

Here is the FILTER and ISTEXT functions combo formula:

=FILTER(A6:A13, ISTEXT(A6:A13))

The value for the condition argument of the FILTER function is ISTEXT(A6:A13). This value tells the FILTER function to filter only the text data.

The output of the above combo formula is:

Rent
Groceries
Bills
Other

If you wish to extract only numbers, replace ISTEXT with ISNUMBER in the
above combo formula.

Take a look at this video tutorial, which gives the steps to use the Google
Sheets FILTER, ISTEXT, and ISNUMBER functions with an example.