Concatenate Strings

This example illustrates four different ways to concatenate (join) strings in Excel.

1. Simply use the & operator to join strings.



Note: to insert a space, use " "

2. The CONCATENATE function produces the exact same result.



3a. The CONCAT function in Excel 2016 produces the exact same result.



3b. The CONCAT function can also join a range of strings. If you don't need a delimiter (space, comma, dash, etc.) this can be useful.



4a. The CONCAT function cannot ignore empty cells. Take a look at all the extra spaces in column E below if you drag the function in cell E2 down to cell E11.



4b. The beauty of the TEXTJOIN function in Excel 2016 is that it can ignore empty cells (if the second argument is set to TRUE).



Note: the TEXTJOIN function joins a range of strings using a delimiter (first argument)..