How to Combine Two Columns in Excel

Sometimes when you’re using Excel, you might have data inputted across multiple columns, and you may wish to combine columns. One of the major perks of using spreadsheet software like Excel is that you can easily combine columns with simple formulas and functions, merging two (or more) columns together.

The simplest way to combine multiple columns in Excel is by using the Ampersand & symbol and a simple formula. If you’re new to this, don’t worry, we’ll walk you through it and show you how to combine two (or more) columns in Excel. This works the same with every version of Excel on every platform that Excel works on, including Windows PC, MacOS, iPad, iOS, Android, and the web.

How to Combine Two (or More) Columns in Excel

For demonstration purposes, let’s make it easy and assume you wish to combine Column A with Column B, and display that in Column C.

Combining Two+ Columns Without Spaces in Excel

To merge Column A and B into Column C, we would use the following formula syntax in Column C row 2, or C2:

=A2&B2

Note we are starting in the second row and cell down because the first row (A1, B1) we are going to assume has a header to label those columns. If there is no label on the columns and you’re just working with raw data, you can use =A1&B1 instead.

Adding a Space Between Combined Column Data

If you’re combining two columns (or more) and want a separation/space to be between each of data set when combined (for example, for columns of first and last names, or datasets you want separated by space) use the following syntax instead:

=A2&" "&B2

Combining Three, Four, Five, etc Columns in Excel

If you want to combine three columns, the formula would be like so:

=A2&B2&C2

And for combining four columns:

=A2&B2&C2&D2

And so on.

Combining the Entire Column with Fill Down in Excel

The Fill function in Excel allows you to easily carry the formula from the first cell to all additional cells in a column. There are two ways to do this.

1. Select the cell with the formula you entered (in this case, containing ‘=A2&” “&B2’)
2. Drag the corner of that cell down to the bottom of the data columns to fill all the way down

You can also select the cell with the formula entered, and then choose the Edit menu (or Edit from the ribbon) > Fill > Fill Down

For what it’s worth, this is obviously covering merging two (or more) columns with Microsoft Excel, but you can actually use the same formulas in Numbers app to combine columns as well.

While this is the easiest way to combine columns with Excel, there are other ways, other formulas, and other functions (like CONCATENATE) that will perform similar actions. Do you use another approach to merging and combining columns in Excel? Do you have a preferred method? Let us known your own experiences and thoughts in the comments.