I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to Excel and Google Sheets (or similar spreadsheet apps), so I was excited to learn a few useful functions that are similar to functions we have available in programming languages:
These are specifically for Google Sheets, but I'm sure there are similar equivalents for other spreadsheet apps.
The
SPLIT() function accepts two arguments: (1) The text or location of the text you want to split; (2) the delimiter that defines where to split the text. So you'll have something like
=SPLIT(A1," ") in your cell formula. In that case, I'm splitting my text using the space character. This might be useful if I have a list of names in a single column. If I want to "split" the names into first and last (or first, middle, last), this would work as it distributes the newly split values into multiple cells.
The
CONCAT() function does essentially the opposite, concatenating two values. If I want to concatenate more than two values, I can use
CONCATENATE(). So in this case, I might have a list of first and last names, and possibly a middle name. I can then do something like
=CONCAT(B1,C1) to merge the names together into a single cell.
If I want to add a space in between the merged words, I would use something like
=CONCATENATE(B1, " ", C1).The longer function allows more than two arguments, so I can add the optional space.
Easy stuff for some of you spreadsheet experts? Probably! But useful functions to keep in mind for those of us who don't often work in spreadsheet apps.
Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!
