What function would return a specified number of characters from a text string in Excel?

The function that returns a specified number of characters from a text string in Excel is the MID function. This function allows you to extract a substring from a text string by specifying the starting position and the number of characters you want to retrieve.

For example, if you have the text "Hello, World!" and you want to extract "World", you would use the MID function to start at the 8th character and return 5 characters (which gives you "World"). The syntax for the MID function is MID(text, start_num, num_chars), where "text" is the original string, "start_num" is the position to start extracting from, and "num_chars" is the number of characters to extract.

The LEFT function retrieves a specified number of characters from the start of a string, and the RIGHT function retrieves a specified number of characters from the end of a string; both serve different purposes than MID. The LEN function, on the other hand, simply counts the number of characters in a text string and does not extract any characters, making it irrelevant for this specific task.