Combining Multiple Rows in a Column

Bonnie described a common problem that occurs when importing a file into Excel. The file being imported is a scanned text file, and the import goes just fine, with one small glitch: in one column where there was wrapped text in the original document, the text now occupies several rows in the worksheet. Bonnie is looking for a way to combine those rows back into a single cell in that column.

There are a couple of ways this can be done. If you don't have to do this too often, a formulaic approach may be best. Just use the ampersand (&) to concatenate the contents of the rows you want to combine:

=C6 & " " & C7 & " " & C8 & " " & C9

The result is all the text combined into a single cell. You can copy this result to the Clipboard, and then use Paste Special to put it into the final cell where you need it. Finally you can delete the original multiple rows that are no longer needed.

If you need to perform this type of concatenation more than a few times, a simple macro may help:

Sub Combine()
    Dim J As Integer

    If Selection.Cells.Count > 1 Then
        For J = 2 To Selection.Cells.Count
            Selection.Cells(1).Value = _
              Selection.Cells(1).Value & " " & _
              Selection.Cells(J).Value
            Selection.Cells(J).Clear
        Next J
    End If
End Sub

To use this macro, select the cells you want to concatenate and then run the macro. The contents of all the cells are combined into the first cell in the selection, then whatever is in the other cells is cleared. The macro doesn't delete any rows; that is left for you to do. It does, however, combine the contents quickly—even more quickly if you assign a shortcut key to the macro.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2417) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Combining Multiple Rows in a Column.