How to join and split text
Join names with the & sign, and pull a piece out of a code or a name with LEFT, RIGHT, MID and FIND.
Task 1Joining text with the & sign3 questions
The & sign joins pieces of text into one. Text typed into a formula goes inside double quotes, and a space counts as text.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | First name | Surname | Invoice due |
| 2 | Angela | Whitlock | 4 March 2026 |
| 3 | Marcus | Reid | 2 March 2026 |
=A2&" "&B2 returns Angela Whitlock. Without the " " in the middle, the names would run together as AngelaWhitlock.
A date joined with & shows as its stored number. Wrap it in TEXT to say how it should read: ="Due "&TEXT(C2,"dd/mm/yyyy") returns Due 04/03/2026.
Task 2Splitting text of a fixed length4 questions
Task 3Splitting text of any length3 questions