CONCATENATE
Joins two or more text strings into one string. Can also use the & operator.
CONCATENATE(text1, [text2], ...)Arguments
text1First text to jointext2Additional text to join(optional)
=CONCATENATE(A1," ",B1)Joins A1 and B1 with a space
=CONCATENATE("Hello"," ","World")Joins three strings
=A1&" "&B1Shorter alternative using &
- •Use & operator as a shorter alternative
- •TEXTJOIN is more powerful for joining with delimiters
- •Numbers are automatically converted to text
- •Forgetting the space between arguments and getting "JohnSmith" glued together instead of "John Smith"
- •Listing out twenty cells one by one with CONCATENATE, when TEXTJOIN would do the same thing in a fraction of the typing
- •Not realizing CONCATENATE is already considered legacy - Microsoft points people to CONCAT or the & operator these days
TEXTJOINThe better tool once you're joining a whole range with a delimiter, especially if you want to skip blanksTEXTFormat numbers or dates with this first, then join the result into your final stringSUBSTITUTEHandy for cleaning up or fixing parts of the joined text afterwardIs CONCATENATE still supported in modern Excel?
It still runs fine, purely for backward compatibility. But Microsoft has already flagged it as legacy in favor of CONCAT or the & operator, and it could disappear from a future version, so it's not worth building new habits around.
What's the quickest way to join text without CONCATENATE?
The & operator. =A1&" "&B1 does exactly what CONCATENATE(A1," ",B1) does, with less to type.
How do I join an entire range instead of listing every cell?
CONCATENATE can't do that, it needs every cell spelled out. TEXTJOIN(delimiter, ignore_empty, range) joins a whole range like A1:A20 in one shot.
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