For many Microsoft Excel users, combining two columns into one can be an especially helpful function. If you have a list of names with one cell containing a first name and one cell containing a last name, you might want to merge them into one cell, where the first and last name appear together.
This tutorial will teach you how to combine two columns into one in Microsoft Excel.
Let’s say you have three names. The last names are in column A and the first names are in column B. It looks like this:
If you want to combine the first name and last name together with the first name proceeding, follow these steps.
Let’s put these combined names in column C.
For ‘Joe Smith’, we’ll start entering our combination formula in cell C1.
In cell C1, we type: =B1&” “&A1
It looks like this:
The product of this formula renders the name in C1 like this:
In the formula, putting B1 first references Joe. Adding &” at the end lets Excel know you want to perform a combination. Using A1 second references Smith. Preceding it by “& let’s Excel know you want to combine it.
We can do the same procedure for the other two names. For example, if we wanted to combine Bob Regan’s name into cell C2, we would type into C2: =B2&” “&A2
However, re-entering the formula for each name is tedious and unnecessary. Rather, we can click the bottom right corner of cell C1, which contains Joe Smith, and drag the corner down to have Excel replicate the formula. After performing this task, our spreadsheet looks like this:
You have now learned how to combine two columns into one in Microsoft Excel.
