Power Apps Text Functions (With Examples)

Text is the most common data type in Power Apps. Often, it needs to be manipulated in some way: extract part of the text, format it differently or remove unnecessary spaces or symbols. Power Apps text functions can do all of these things and more. In fact, according to my friend Sancho Harker they might just be the most underrated feature of Power Apps!

In this short guide I will show you how to use Power Apps text functions and give everyday examples of how you use them in your own apps.

Table of Contents:
Left, Right & Mid Functions
Find Function
Len Function
Substitute Function
Upper, Lower, Proper Functions
Concatenate Function
Char Function
TrimEnds Functions
Text Function
Other Functions

LEFT, RIGHT, MID Functions

The Left, Right and Mid functions are used to extract part of a text string.

Left( String, NumberOfCharacters )
Right( String, NumberOfCharacters )
Mid( String, StartingPosition, NumberOfCharacters )

Why I use these functions:

Companies love to use account codes to organize their records. The code below has three parts: State (NY), Year (2021) and Sequence Number (003).

"NY-2021-003"

I can get each segment of the account like this.

// get the State "NY"
Left("NY-2021-003", 2)

// get the Year "2021"
Mid("NY-2021-003", 4, 4)

// get the Sequence Number "003"
Right("NY-2021-003", 3)

FIND Function

The Find function locates the position of a text string inside another text string.

Find( FindString, WithinString [, StartingPosition ] )


Why I use this function

Suppose I have a table of employee names and want to extract the first name. I can’t use the Left or Right functions because each name has a different length.

By using the Find function to determine the position of the blank space in the employee name then combining it with the Left function allows me to get the first name.

Left(ThisItem.EmployeeName, Find(" ", ThisItem.EmployeeName)-1)

// Result: ["Matthew", "Sarah", "Allison"]

LEN Function

The Len function returns the length of a text string.

Len( String )

Why I use this function

Now I want to get each employee’s last name. After determining the length of the full name I can substract the position of the blank space and use the Right function to isolate only the part I want.

Right(
    ThisItem.EmployeeName,
    Len(ThisItem.EmployeeName)-Find(" ", ThisItem.EmployeeName)
) 

// Result: ["Devaney", "Green", "Reed"]

SUBSTITUTE Function

The Substitute function replaces matching sections of a text string with another value.

Substitute( String, OldString, NewString [, InstanceNumber ] )

Why I use this function

Phone numbers are stored in a variety of different formats. In this case each block of number is separated by a dash.

If I want the phone number without the dash instead I can use the Substitute function to change the text string.

Substitute(ThisItem.PhoneNumber, "-", "")

// Result: ["2049876453", "2049981223", "2049675834"]

A more straight-forward use case for the LEN function would be to display the current length of a text string vs. its maximum size.

Len("Winnipeg1965")&"/20 characters long"

// Result: 12/20 characters long

UPPER, LOWER, PROPER Functions

The Upper, Lower and Proper functions change the case of a text string.


Lower( String )
Upper( String )
Proper( String )

Why I use these functions

When an app is opened I like to check the current user’s email to determine what role they should have (e.g. admin user, normal user). The equals operator used to check for a match is case sensitive so I convert the email to all lower case letters before making the comparison. I could have also used the Upper function to do the same thing.

User().Email
// Result: "[email protected]"

Lower(User().Email)
// Result: "[email protected]"

Lower(User().Email)="[email protected]"
// Result: true

Another idea is to use the Proper function to capitalize the first letter of each word in a name when it is spelled in lower case.

Proper("matthew devaney")

// Result: "Matthew Devaney"

CONCATENATE Function

The Concatenate function joins together many text strings into one.

Concatenate( String1 [, String2, …] )

Why I use this function

Customer address information is typically divided into several columns when stored in a datasource (e.g. SharePoint, Dataverse).

When I want to show the customer’s full address I can combine all of the columns by using the concatenate function.

Concatenate(
    ThisItem.Address,
    ", ",
    ThisItem.City,
    " ",
    ThisItem.State
    "  ",
    ThisItem.'Zip Code'
)

// Result: ["10 Country Lane, Albany, NY  90219-2003", "67 Cherry Road, Greenville, SC  94920-1930", "1st Street North, Chicago, IL  93094-3942"] 

CHAR Function

The Char function returns a matching ASCII character from an integer value


Char( CharacterCode )

Why I use this function

Some text strings are hard to write because they include symbols that are a a part of the Power Apps language or other tricky characters. I use the Char function to define them. Check out this page for a full list of Char codes.

// quotation marks
Char(34)&"Hello World"&Char(34)

// Result: "Hello World"


// line-break
"Hello"&Char(10)&"World"

// Result: "Hello
World"

// tabbed space
"Hello"&Char(9)&"World"

// Result: "Hello   World"

TRIMENDS Function

TrimEnds removes the blank spaces from the start and end of a text string.



TrimEnds( String )

Why I use this function

Sometimes I encounter ‘dirty data’ that has extra whitepsaces and needs cleaning. The TrimEnds function makes this painless to do.

TrimEnds("  a short sentence. ")

// Result: "a short sentence"

TEXT Function

The Text function converts a number or datetime value to text and formats it.

Text( NumberOrDateTime, CustomFormat [, ResultLanguageTag ] )

Why I use this function:

A datetime value will appear in the default format found on a users device if no formatting instructions are provided. I want to control exactly what the user sees so I always define the formatting in my Power Apps. Several pre-defined formats can be found in the documentation or I can create my own custom format if needed.

// get the current time in a pre-definded format.
Text(Now(), ShortDateTime)

// Result 2/7/2021 10:34 AM

// get the current time in a custom defined format
Text(Now(), "m/d/yyyy hh:mm:ss AM/PM")

// Result 2/7/2021 10:34 AM

Another technique I use often is to format a decimal number as a currency.

// show a number with currency formatting
Text(2056.20, "$#,##0.00")

// Result $2,056.00

Other Functions

There are a few more text functions I use less often. If you want to check them out you click on one links below and it will take you to the Power Apps formulas reference.

• EncodeURL function
• PlainText function
• Replace function
• Trim function

Questions?

If you have any questions or feedback about Power Apps Text Functions (With Examples) please leave a message in the comments section below. You can post using your email address and are not required to create an account to join the discussion.