<div>
The reason why your original was not working is probably because the contents of D1 are text rather than a number. Eventhough you are only looking at the first character and it is a number the fact that it has come from a text string it will be recognised as text.<br />
<br />
If you want literally just a TRUE or FALSE result you don't need the IF statement:<br />
<br />
=LEFT(D2;1)=&quot;5&quot;<br />
<br />
Thanks<br />
Rob
</div>


<div>
Thank you Rob Henson,<br />
it's a beautiful answer
</div>


<div>
<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
Dear Experts,<br />
<br />
=IF(LEFT(D2;1)=5;TRUE;FALS<wbr />E)<br />
<br />
I want to check, if the first letter of D1 is 5, I want to write TRUE otherwise FALSE<br />
<br />
what is wrong with my formula?
</div>
</div>


Dear Experts,

=IF(LEFT(D2;1)=5;TRUE;FALSE)

I want to check, if the first letter of D1 is 5, I want to write TRUE otherwise FALSE

what is wrong with my formula?

The reason why your original was not working is probably because the contents of D1 are text rather than a number. Eventhough you are only looking at the first character and it is a number the fact that it has come from a text string it will be recognised as text.

If you want literally just a TRUE or FALSE result you don&#39;t need the IF statement:

=LEFT(D2;1)=&quot;5&quot;

Thanks
Rob

Thank you Rob Henson,
it&#39;s a beautiful answer

simple excel formula

Microsoft Excel topics include formulas, formatting, VBA macros and user-defined functions, and everything else related to the spreadsheet user interface, including error messages.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Office is an integrated suite of applications that includes Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Visio and InfoPath, along with a number of tools to assist in making the individual components work together. Coding within and between the projects is done in Visual Basic for Applications, known as VBA.