UNICODE

Description

Use this function to return the Unicode value of the first character in a text string. This is the opposite of the UNICHAR function.

UNICODE(text)

This function accepts the following arguments:

Name	Required	Description	Valid input
`text`	Yes	The text for which you want the first character's Unicode value.	A single character that is surrounded by double quotation marks (” “) entered directly into the function, a cell reference, or a formula which results in either of these.

Use case	Formula	Explanation and Result
Look up the Unicode value for a specific character you type directly into the formula.	`=UNICODE("A")`	Returns the numeric code point for the letter "A". Result: 65
Look up the Unicode value of the first character in a cell's text.	`=UNICODE(A3)`	Reads the first character of "George" ("G") and returns its code point. Result: 71 (the value for "G")
Look up the Unicode value of the first character when a cell holds a number instead of text.	`=UNICODE(A4)`	Treats the number 45 as the text "45" and returns the code point of its first character, "4". Result: 52 (the value for "4")
Look up the Unicode value of the first character in a number typed directly into the formula.	`=UNICODE(24)`	Treats the number 24 as the text "24" and returns the code point of its first character, "2". Result: 50 (the value for "2")
Look up the Unicode value of a character elsewhere in a text string, not just the first one.	`=UNICODE(MID(A3,3,2))`	Pulls "or" out of "George" starting at the 3rd character, then returns the code point of its first character, "o". Result: 111 (the value for "o")

The UNICODE function returns the Unicode value of the first character in a text string.
If the text string is empty, UNICODE returns the #VALUE! error.
The font used in a worksheet may alter the appearance of characters, especially for 'high ASCII' characters (characters numbered 128 to 255, corresponding to Unicode U+0080 to U+00FF). Different fonts may render these characters in various ways, which might affect their visual representation.
The function can be used to identify characters in a text string that may not display correctly in certain fonts or applications.

Use UNICODE to find the numeric code of characters, which can be useful for debugging text data issues.
Combine UNICODE with functions such as MID and LEN to analyze and manipulate text strings more effectively.
UNICODE returns the code point of the first character only. To get the code points of subsequent characters, use functions such as MID in conjunction with UNICODE. (See example above.)