Google Looker Studio : Text Function
Google Looker Studio Function: Text Function Category: Text Functions Google Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) offers powerful text functions that help transform and manipulate text data in reports. These functions...
Category: Text Functions
Google Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) offers powerful text functions that help transform and manipulate text data in reports. These functions are essential for cleaning, formatting, and analyzing data effectively. Whether you’re building dashboards or dynamic reports, mastering these functions can significantly boost your productivity and insight accuracy.
This guide introduces the purpose of the text functions and provides short, clear explanations of each available function to help you make the most of your Looker Studio reports.
Purpose of Text Functions in Looker Studio
Text functions serve several important purposes in Google Looker Studio:
Data Summarisation: Extract or highlight specific parts of strings to make data more concise and readable.
Enhanced Data Analytics: Enable more accurate filtering, grouping, and transformation of textual data for deeper insights.
Customisable Reporting: Modify or format text dynamically to tailor reports to business-specific needs and branding.
| Function | Syntax | Description (20–25 words) |
|---|---|---|
| CONCAT(text1, text2) | Combines two or more text values into one string. Useful for merging names or labels. |
CONTAINS_TEXT | CONTAINS_TEXT(text_field, substring) | Returns true if the text contains a specified substring. Helpful for conditional checks. |
ENDS_WITH | ENDS_WITH(text_field, suffix) | Returns true if the text ends with a specific suffix. Good for validating formats. |
LEFT_TEXT | LEFT_TEXT(text_field, number_of_characters) | Extracts a set number of characters from the beginning of a string. |
LENGTH | LENGTH(text_field) | Returns the total number of characters in a text string, including spaces. |
LOWER | LOWER(text_field) | Converts all characters to lowercase. Useful for data normalization and comparison. |
REGEXP_CONTAINS | REGEXP_CONTAINS(text_field, regex_pattern) | Returns true if text contains a match for the regex pattern. Enables complex filtering. |
REGEXP_EXTRACT | REGEXP_EXTRACT(text_field, regex_pattern) | Extracts the substring that matches the given regular expression pattern. |
REGEXP_MATCH | REGEXP_MATCH(text_field, regex_pattern) | Returns true if the entire text matches the regex pattern exactly. |
REGEXP_REPLACE | REGEXP_REPLACE(text, regex_pattern, replacement) | Replaces matches of a regex pattern with new text. Great for text cleaning. |
REPLACE | REPLACE(text, search, replacement) | Replaces all occurrences of a specified string with another. Simple and effective. |
RIGHT_TEXT | RIGHT_TEXT(text_field, number_of_characters) | Extracts characters from the end (right side) of a string. Useful for IDs or suffixes. |
STARTS_WITH | STARTS_WITH(text_field, prefix) | Returns true if the text starts with a certain prefix. Often used in data validation. |
SUBSTR | SUBSTR(text_field, start_position, length) | Returns a portion of the text from a specified position. Ideal for structured data. |
TRIM | TRIM(text_field) | Removes leading and trailing whitespace. Useful for cleaning imported or inconsistent data. |
UPPER | UPPER(text_field) | Converts all characters to uppercase for consistency or display purposes. |
Text functions allow you to clean, transform, and format text data to make your reports more dynamic and accurate.
Yes, Looker Studio supports function nesting. For example: UPPER(TRIM(CONCAT("Hello", "World"))).
Regex functions like REGEXP_EXTRACT offer advanced pattern matching, making them ideal for extracting structured or formatted data.
Use TRIM to remove spaces and REGEXP_REPLACE to remove or substitute specific characters or symbols.
Yes, many functions like CONTAINS_TEXT and REGEXP_MATCH are case-sensitive. Use LOWER or UPPER to standardize data before comparisons.