The result is a text string that contains both the name and email address enclosed in angle brackets (<>). In the worksheet shown, column B contains a name, and column C contains an email address. The formula in column D uses the ampersand character (&) to join the name and email address together: This is an example of concatenation. On the right side of the formula, the email address in C5 is wrapped in angle brackets: Notice the angle brackets are text and must be enclosed on double quotes (""). Also notice that opening bracket (<) begins with a space character. This allows us to join the name directly to the left side: The result is the name followed by a space character, followed by the email address in angle brackets.
Concatenation functions
In the example shown, the ampersand operator (&) is used to concatenate the name, email, and angle brackets manually. The ampersand is a flexible way to concatenate text strings, because it can be used in a formula anywhere. However, Excel also has three functions dedicated to concatenation: CONCATENATE, CONCAT, and TEXTJOIN. Both CONCATENATE and CONCAT can be used to solve the same problem like this: Note that the CONCATENATE function is now technically replaced by the CONCAT function, which was first released in Excel 2019. The TEXTJOIN function is primarily designed to concatenate ranges.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
