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CONCAT / TEXTJOIN / &

Text & cleanup

Stitch pieces of text together — a full name, an address, a dynamic label.

Difficulty

Amateur
Excel file

1What is it?

These are three ways to join text. The ampersand (&) glues values together in a formula — "Cash: " & B2 — and is perfect for a quick two- or three-part label. CONCAT joins a list or a whole range in one go. TEXTJOIN is the powerful one: it puts a delimiter between every piece (a space, a comma, a line break) and can skip blank cells, so joining a column into one clean, comma-separated string is a single formula instead of a chain of ampersands.

2What it looks like

TEXTJOIN(delimiter, ignore_empty, text1, [text2], …)
delimiter
What to put between each piece — " ", ", ", or CHAR(10) for a line break.
ignore_empty
TRUE skips blank cells so you don't get doubled-up delimiters.
text1, …
The pieces or ranges to join.

3When you use it

  • Full name from two cells: =B2 & " " & C2, or =TEXTJOIN(" ", TRUE, B2, C2).
  • Join a column into one comma-separated string with TEXTJOIN.
  • Build a dynamic label: ="Q" & B2 & " — " & TEXT(C2, "$#,##0").

4See it in action

Change the inputs — the formula and result update live. Prefer the real thing? Download the Excel file and open it in Excel.

Stitch the first and last name into one. All three methods give the same result — pick the one that reads best.

C2
fx
=B2 & " " & B3Jane Doe
ABC
1FieldValueResult
2FirstJaneJane Doe
3LastDoe

The lime cell holds the formula — click it (or any cell) to see its contents in the bar above, just like Excel. Edit the blue cells to watch it recompute.

5Common errors

Numbers lose formattingYou joined a value and the $ / commas vanished.

Fix: Wrap the number in TEXT() first: & TEXT(B2, "$#,##0").

Doubled delimitersBlank cells left empty gaps between commas.

Fix: Set TEXTJOIN's ignore_empty to TRUE.

#NAME?CONCAT or TEXTJOIN isn't recognized (older Excel).

Fix: They need Excel 2019 / Microsoft 365 — use & or CONCATENATE otherwise.

6Better functions & alternatives

  • TEXT — Format a number before joining so the $ and commas survive.
  • TEXTSPLIT — The reverse — break one joined cell back into pieces (Microsoft 365).
  • CONCATENATE — The old function CONCAT replaced; still works but can't take a range.

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