A Step-by-Step Guide to Combining Two Columns in Excel

Often in Excel, you'll find yourself needing to combine two columns into one. Whether you're consolidating data or simply reformatting, Excel has a few methods for you to accomplish this. Here's a step-by-step guide.

Using Ampersand (&)

1. Suppose you have data in columns A and B, and you want to combine them into column C.
2. In the first cell of column C (C1), type the formula =A1&B1 and press 'Enter'.

3. To copy this formula down the column, click on the lower right corner of the cell (you'll see a small square, known as the fill handle), and drag it down to the end of your data.

4. Combine text from two or more cells into one cell

Using CONCATENATE Function

1. Similar to the first method, in cell C1, type the formula =CONCATENATE(A1,B1) and press 'Enter'.

2. Drag the fill handle down to the end of your data.

3. CONCATENATE function

Using the TEXTJOIN Function

If you're using Excel 2016 or later, you can use the TEXTJOIN function, which allows you to specify a delimiter that will be inserted between the text strings to be joined.

1. In cell C1, type the formula =TEXTJOIN(" ", TRUE, A1, B1) and press 'Enter'. The " " specifies a space as the delimiter.

2. Drag the fill handle down to the end of your data.

3. TEXTJOIN function

By combining two columns in Excel, you can consolidate data and make your spreadsheets easier to manage and analyze. This tutorial gives you a step-by-step guide on how to do this.