Combining Cell Contents

Summary: The formulas you can create in Excel can be simple or complex, but there are some basic building blocks you need to use. This tip examines one building block that allows you to combine text values to create new text values. (This tip works with Microsoft Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, Excel 2003, and Excel 2007.)

At the heart of Excel is the ability to add formulas to worksheets. You use these formulas to manipulate information stored in different cells. One of the ways you can manipulate information is to combine the contents of your cells. For instance, let's assume you have a list of last names in column A, a list of first names in column B, and a list of titles (Mr., Ms., Dr., etc.) in column C. If you wanted to derive a full name for these people, you could use the following formula:

=C4 & " " & B4 & " " & A4

The result of such a formula is that Excel combines the values (the names and titles) from the specified cells and places spaces between them. The ampersand character (&) is used to indicate that Excel should "add" text together to create a new text value.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2623) applies to Microsoft Excel versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Combining Cell Contents