How to extract first initial and last name from a cell with full name?

[akinch]

How to extract first initial and last name from a cell with full name? Looking to return J. Smith from John Smith. Please advice. Thank you!

 

[HighAndWilder]

How to extract first initial and last name from a cell with full name? Looking to return J. Smith from John Smith. Please advice. Thank you!

Book1
	B	C	D	E	F	G
2
3
4		John Smith			J. Smith
5
6
7
Sheet1

Cell Formulas
Range	Formula
F4	F4	=LEFT(C4,1) & ". " & TRIM(RIGHT(SUBSTITUTE(C4," ",REPT(" ",100)),100))

 

[SunnyAlv]

try

=LET(name,B2,a,TEXTSPLIT(name," "),
IF(COLUMNS(a)=1,name,CONCAT(LEFT(name,1),". ",CHOOSECOLS(a,COLUMNS(a)))))

 

[Rick Rothstein]

Assuming you have a range of names to process (I used the setup in @SunnyAlv's reply), then this single formula will generate all of the abbreviated names for the range provided to it...

=LET(r,B2:B6,IF(ISNUMBER(FIND(" ",r)),LEFT(r)&". ","")&TEXTAFTER(r," ",-1,,,r))