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Combine text from two or more cells into one cell

Combine text from two or more cells into one cell

You can combine text from two or more cells into one cell. For example, if you have one cell in your worksheet with a person’s first name and one cell with their last name, you can combine them in another cell. In this topic, we'll discuss several different methods for doing this.

Flash Fill

If you have a lot of rows of data where you want to combine text, you don’t have to repeat the above procedure for every row. For example, if column A contains peoples’ first names and column B has all their last names, and you want to fill column C with all their first and last names combined, you can simply start typing the combined text in column C and Excel will fill in the rest for you.

  1. Click the cell where you want to put the first set of combined text.

  2. Type the combined text.

  3. Press ENTER.

  4. Type the next set of combined text. Excel will show you a preview of the rest of the column filled in with your combined text.

  5. To accept the preview, press ENTER.

    Concatenate data with Flash Fill

Note: Flash Fill is only available for Excel 2013 for Windows and later.

 
Ampersand (&)(I will use it)

Using the Ampersand symbol, which you can enter with Shift+7, is the simplest way of joining cell contents. In the following example, we'll use =A2&" "&B2 to join first and last names.

  1. Click the cell where you want to put the combined text.

  2. Type =, then click the cell that contains the first text you want to combine, such as a person’s first name.

  3. Type &” “& (a space enclosed in quotation marks).

  4. Click the next cell with the text that you want to combine, such as the person’s last name, then press Enter.

    Use =A2&" "&B2 to concatenate text like First and Last Name

    Tip:  To combine the text from more than two cells, continue selecting cells, and typing &” “& after each cell you select. If you don’t want to add a space between the combined text, type & instead of &” “&. To add a comma, type &”, “& (a comma followed by a space, both enclosed in quotation marks).

    use =B2&", "&A2 to concatenate text, like Last Name, First Name
 
CONCAT function

Instead of using the Ampersand (&), you can use the CONCAT function.

Example

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.

  1. Select the text in the example, starting with “First name” and ending with the phone number in the last row.

  2. Press Ctrl+C to copy the text.

  3. In a blank worksheet, select cell A1, and press Ctrl+V.

First name

Last name   

Phone

 

Steve

Riley

555-1875 ext. 2007

  

Terry

Adams

555-2306

  

Jim

Hance

555-1896

  

Wendy

Wheeler

555-2307 ext. 705

  

Function

=CONCAT(A2," ",B2," ",C2)

    

Result:

Steve Riley 555-1875 ext. 2007

    

The formula in the Function column of the preceding example table uses the CONCAT function to combine the contents of three cells in columns A, B, and C. In the function, you separate the cells or strings that you want combined by commas. To add a space between the strings, include a space enclosed in quotation marks (" "). If you look at the CONCAT function in the formula, you’ll see that the contents of A2 are combined with a space, the contents of B2, another space, and the contents of C2.

After you paste the example into your worksheet, drag the formula in D2 down to cells D3:D5 to combine the contents of those cells.

Note: Some browsers put an apostrophe (') in front of copied formulas, which makes Excel see them as text. If the formula displays as text instead of the result after you paste it, select the formula cell, then press F2, delete the apostrophe and press Enter.

Here’s a similar example that uses the CHAR function to insert a new line. These results are better suited for a mailing label.

First name

Last name   

Street address

City

State

Zip code

Steve

Riley

4567 Main St.

Buffalo

NY

98052

Function:

=CONCAT("The ",B2," Family",CHAR(10),C2,CHAR(10),D2,", ",E2," ",F2)

        

Description:

Combines the last name with the words "The" and "Family" and then combines the address with it. CHAR(10) is used to insert a new line. You will need to set the cells to wrap text for the new line to display properly.

        

Result:

The Riley Family
4567 Main St.
Buffalo, NY 98052

        
 
TEXTJOIN function
 

Need more help?

You can always ask an expert in the Excel Tech Community, get support in the Answers community, or suggest a new feature or improvement on Excel User Voice.

See Also

Overview of formulas in Excel

How to avoid broken formulas

Find and correct errors in formulas

Excel keyboard shortcuts and function keys

TEXT functions (reference)

Excel functions (alphabetical)

Excel functions (by category)