Combining and splitting columns in Excel is easy.  Its called Concatenation (joining) and Text to Columns (splitting a column into multiple columns).  I am forever getting spreadsheets with a person’s name split into 3 columns, First, Middle Initial and Last.  I need the whole name for something like a concordance file for indexing so I use a concatenation formula to create a  combination column.

Then there is the opposite case where you have a full name and you want to split it out into 3 separate columns.  That’s called Text to Columns and it is found in the Data tab in Excel.

These techniques are very useful, so we created a video that illustrated how to do both (Concatenation and Text to Columns) about 7 years ago but it only got 47 views, probably because no one did a search with Combining and Splitting Columns in Excel  Well, let’s try again because this is good stuff.  Have a look.