CONCATENATE vs CONCAT: Simplify Text Combination

Nothing is worse than spending hours formatting text in Excel, only to realize you've been using the wrong function. By the end of this post, you'll be able to combine text efficiently using both CONCATENATE and CONCAT functions, and know when to use each.

Imagine you have a dataset of 5,000 customer names, and you need to combine the first and last names into a single column. You can use the CONCATENATE function:

=CONCATENATE(A2, " ", B2)

Alternatively, you can use the CONCAT function, which is a more recent addition to Excel:

=CONCAT(A2, " ", B2)

Both functions will produce the same result, but CONCAT is generally faster and more efficient.

Common Mistakes

When using CONCATENATE, a common mistake is to forget the & operator, which can result in a #VALUE! error. To fix this, make sure to include the & operator between the text strings.

Real-World Example

Suppose you have a dataset with customer names and addresses, and you want to combine the city, state, and zip code into a single column. You can use the CONCATENATE function with the TEXTJOIN function to achieve this:

=CONCATENATE(TEXTJOIN(", ", TRUE, C2, D2, E2))

This will produce a formatted string with the city, state, and zip code separated by commas.

When things go wrong, it's often due to a simple mistake. Here are some common error scenarios and their solutions:

• #VALUE! error: Check that you've included the & operator between text strings.
• #NAME? error: Make sure you've spelled the function name correctly.
• #REF! error: Check that the cell references are correct and not circular.

To troubleshoot these errors, use the FIND function to locate the problem area, and then use the SUBSTITUTE function to replace any incorrect characters.

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