How to use the CONCATENATE function in Excel

In this article, we will learn How to use the CONCATENATE function in Excel.

What is concatenation ?

Joining things together is called concatenate and the process is known as concatenation. In Excel, concatenate is used to join two or more text values in different cells. For Example, joining the First name, middle name and last name to get the full name of employees in a table. Generally we use the & operator to add the value.

= "Chris"& " "&"Gayle" resulting to "Chris Gayle"

=CONCATENATE("Chris"," ","Gayle")  resulting to "Chris Gayle" as result as above

Let's learn CONCATENATE function syntax and an example to illustrate the function usage as shown below.

CONCATENATE Function in Excel

CONCATENATE function in Excel joins different text values to one.

CONCATENATE Function Syntax:

Here text1, text2, text3 are the values to be combined.

Example :

All of these might be confusing to understand. Let's understand how to use the function using an example. Here we have some text values in cells. And we need to join the A2, B2, C2 & D2 into one in the E2 cekk

Use the formula in E2 cell:

Press Enter to get the result.

Using the same formula in the E3 cell for the text "ABCD" to be in the cell.

As you can see we added values from the cells. We can also add values like strings or special characters in the function.

Now we need to add A4, B4, “.” and D4 cells.

Use the formula in E4 cell:

Now we need to add space in between the cell values.

Use the formula in E5 cell:

Press Enter to get the result.

You must be wondering here why we didn't use the range of cells together to concatenate values like A2:D2. Because the CONCATENATE function doesn't understand array references. Use the CONCAT function in Excel 365 or above versions.

Here are all the observational notes using the CONCATENATE function in Excel
Notes :

1. Use & operator or CONCATENATE function. These both work as same on text values.
2. Joining only Numbers will return a number value. Joining text will return a text value. But joining numbers to text will return text value. For example joining 565 with "abc" will return "565abc".

Hope this article about How to use the CONCATENATE function in Excel is explanatory. Find more articles on joining text values and related Excel text formulas here. If you liked our blogs, share it with your friends on Facebook. And also you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. We would love to hear from you, do let us know how we can improve, complement or innovate our work and make it better for you. Write to us at info@exceltip.com.

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