you can use the MID function to extract data or use the text to column feature

with mid

if you have 1 cell (lets say z67) which has " a1 spiky loves sheep"

you can do "=mid(z67,1,2) this will start at charachter 1 and extract 2 characters for and would give you "a1"

or you could do =mid(z67,4,5) this would give you spiky