Moon,

There are a few ways. A couple are here. Not too robust, I fear,

Data - Text to Columns. Make sure there are empty columns to the right to
contain the parsed stuff. Select your column. Data - Text to Columns,
Delimited, Delimiter: comma. This will split Doe, John into two columns.
It won't preserve the original data (the last name will wind up in the in
the original column), and will use an additional column for the first name.
If there are additional commas, it will use more columns. The space after
the comma will be included in the first name. It sometimes doesn't put the
data in the same rows as was the original.

You can easily rearrange the columns laterally if you need the first name
column at the left by selecting a column, then edge-dragging holding the
Shift key.

Another way is with two helper columns:

Last Name: =LEFT(A2,SEARCH(",",A2)-1)
First Name: =MID(A2,SEARCH(",",A2)+2,LEN(A2))

The first name formula depends on the space after the comma, and will lop
off the first character of the first name if it isn't there. If that's a
possibility, use:

=MID(A2,SEARCH(", ",A2)+2,LEN(A2))

Note the space after the comma in the search string. This will fail with
#VALUE! in such a situtation, which is likely better than a messed-up first
name.

Earl Kiosterud
www.smokeylake.com

"Moon" wrote in message
...
Imported text from another program shows "Doe, John". Does anyone know
how
to break it into "John" and "Doe"?