Batch string concatenation in Excel

Question

I have a couple hundred of cells in Excel I would like to concatenate into a single string. Is there a simpler method of doing this than going through them one by one manually in order to type them into CONCATENATE(A1, A2, ....)?

CONCATENATE(A1:A255) does not work.

Answer 1

concatenate(a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7, a8, a9, a10, a11, a12, a13, a14, a15, a16, a17, a18, a19, a20, a21, a22, a23, a24, a25, a26, a27, a28, a29, a30, a31, a32, a33, a34, a35, a36, a37, a38, a39, a40, a41, a42, a43, a44, a45, a46, a47, a48, a49, a50, a51, a52, a53, a54, a55, a56, a57, a58, a59, a60, a61, a62, a63, a64, a65, a66, a67, a68, a69, a70, a71, a72, a73, a74, a75, a76, a77, a78, a79, a80, a81, a82, a83, a84, a85, a86, a87, a88, a89, a90, a91, a92, a93, a94, a95, a96, a97, a98, a99, a100, a101, a102, a103, a104, a105, a106, a107, a108, a109, a110, a111, a112, a113, a114, a115, a116, a117, a118, a119, a120, a121, a122, a123, a124, a125, a126, a127, a128, a129, a130, a131, a132, a133, a134, a135, a136, a137, a138, a139, a140, a141, a142, a143, a144, a145, a146, a147, a148, a149, a150, a151, a152, a153, a154, a155, a156, a157, a158, a159, a160, a161, a162, a163, a164, a165, a166, a167, a168, a169, a170, a171, a172, a173, a174, a175, a176, a177, a178, a179, a180, a181, a182, a183, a184, a185, a186, a187, a188, a189, a190, a191, a192, a193, a194, a195, a196, a197, a198, a199, a200, a201, a202, a203, a204, a205, a206, a207, a208, a209, a210, a211, a212, a213, a214, a215, a216, a217, a218, a219, a220, a221, a222, a223, a224, a225, a226, a227, a228, a229, a230, a231, a232, a233, a234, a235, a236, a237, a238, a239, a240, a241, a242, a243, a244, a245, a246, a247, a248, a249, a250, a251, a252, a253, a254, a255)

PowerShell it!

"concatenate(a$((1..255) -join ', a'))" | clip

Open the text file copy and paste

"To quickly select cells you can press CTRL and click on cells you want to be included in the concatenate function. Example, Select a cell Type =concatenate( in formula bar Press and hold CTRL button and click cells to be included. Release CTRL button Type ) in formula bar and press Enter"

Answer 2

My preferred method is to cut-and-paste the values into an editor that allows regular expressions, then I simply remove the tabs (or spaces) with a find and replace on my current selection.

You can also use this to insert commas, whitespace, or whatever you want.

It's a ton faster than typing =concatenate(A1,",","A2",",",......)

Answer 3

See this blog post here: http://www.dullsharpness.com/2011/11/14/excel-vba-range-to-csv-range2csv-function/

You can use it like so, e.g. with a pipe delimiter:

=Range2Csv(A1:A255,"|")

Access your VBA editor using Alt+F11 and drop it into a module.

Code excerpt is here:

Option Explicit
'**********************************************
'* PURPOSE: Concatenates range contents into a
'*          delimited text string
'*
'* FUNCTION SIGNATURE: Range2Csv(Range, String)
'*
'* PARAMETERS:
'*    Range  - the range of cells whose contents
'*             will be included in the CSV result
'*    String - delimiter used to separate values
'*             (Optional, defaults to a comma)
'*
'* AUTHOR: www.dullsharpness.com
'*
'* NOTES: [add'l notes removed for brevity]
'*
'**********************************************
Public Function Range2Csv(inputRange As Range, Optional delimiter As String)
  Dim concattedList As String 'holder for the concatted CSVs
  Dim rangeCell As Range      'holder cell used in For-Each loop
  Dim rangeText As String     'holder for rangeCell's text

  'default to a comma delimiter if none is provided
  If delimiter = "" Then delimiter = ","

  concattedList = ""          'start with an empty string

  'Loop through each cell in the range to append valid contents
  For Each rangeCell In inputRange.Cells

    rangeText = rangeCell.Value 'capture the working value

    'Only operate on non-blank cells (i.e. Length > 0)
    If Len(rangeText) > 0 Then
      'Strip any delimiters contained w/in the value itself
      rangeText = WorksheetFunction.Substitute(rangeText, delimiter, "")

      If (Len(concattedList) > 0) Then
        'prepend a delimiter to the new value if we
        'already have some list items
        concattedList = concattedList + delimiter + rangeText
      Else
        'else if the list is blank so far,
        'just set the first value
        concattedList = rangeText
      End If
    End If

  Next rangeCell

  'Set the return value
  Range2Csv = concattedList

End Function

Answer 4

It isn't purely Excel, but there is an easy way to do this with Word.

1. Select the cells you want to concatenate and copy/paste them into Word. This creates a table.
2. Select the entire table.
3. Convert the table to text. Use paragraph marks (or something else that does not appear in your text) as separators.
4. Select all of the text.
5. Use Replace to remove the paragraph marks. (In the "Find what" box, enter ^p. Leave the "Replace with" box empty.)

Answer 5

where the values that you would like to concantenate start in row 2 column 3 of your sheet

Sub GOWN()
roww = 2
Do While cells(roww, 2) <> ""
    aa = cells(roww, 3)
    dd = dd & aa & ","
    roww = roww + 1
Loop
cells(roww + 1, 3) = dd
End Sub

Answer 6

This VBA function will concatenate the contents of cells, with an optional delimiter, if needed. Copy it into a standard module:

  Option Explicit

  Function Concat(CellRange As Range, Optional Delimiter As String) As String 
 ' this function will concatenate a range of cells and return the result as a single string
 ' useful when you have a large range of cells that you need to concatenate
 ' source: http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/05/28/how-to-add-a-range-of-cells-in-excel-concat/

  Dim retVal As String, dlm As String, cell As Range
  retVal = ""
  If Delimiter = Null Then
      dlm = ""
  Else
    dlm = Delimiter
  End If
  For Each cell In CellRange
      If CStr(cell.Value) <> "" And CStr(cell.Value) <> " " Then
          retVal = retVal & CStr(cell.Value) & dlm
      End If
  Next
  If dlm <> "" Then
      retVal = Left(retVal, Len(retVal) - Len(dlm))
  End If
  Concat = retVal
End Function