This Excel function allows you to merge multiple cells, text and/or numbers into a single cell. Very useful for creating a full name from first and last name, changing a year from "11" to "2011", creating a full birthdate from separate fields for day month and year etc... Check out my blog : http://CompensationInsider.com if you are interested in Compensation & Benefits and want to receive free "technical" tips every other Sunday.

1. Using concatenate in excel http://CompensationInsider.com

2. The problem You have separate pieces of text or numbers that you need to group into a single cell. For example : First Name and Family Name are separate and you need a “Full Name” cell Or for example you have a year of birth spelled as “11” from your HR Information System, which you need as “2011” in your survey.

3. The solution The Concatenate function in Excel allows you to “merge” multiple types of content into a single cell. You can merge cells, numbers or text, into any combination that you need. For example merge “first name” then “space” then “family name” to obtain “full name”. Or merge “20” (entered as text) and the cell with year expressed as “YY” to obtain the four-digit year “2011”

4. Step 1 – Select “Concatenate” into Excel functions (fx)

5. Step 2 : enter each element as text (eg : a space should be entered as “ “)

6. Before clicking OK, check what the end result will look like

7. Step 3: enjoy the result !

8. Example where the content cells are not aligned at all – check the result

9. Want to know more ? © Sandrine Bardot and CompensationInsider.com 2011 On my blog CompensationInsider.com, I share Excel, social media, presentation and other useful “technical” tips for Compensation & Benefits and HR professionals, every other Sunday. I also cover C&B topics and career advice the rest of the week. Feel free to check it out and subscribe by email or RSS. Find out more about me and why I started this blog.