It's the concatenation operator.

A1 = try
A2 = this

You could use the CONCATENATE() function like this:

=CONCATENATE(A1," ",A2)

Or, you can use the & operator like this:

=A1&" "&A2

Both return the string: try this

B1 = 10
B2 = 5

C1 = 5

=COUNTIF(B1:B2,""&C1)

Returns: 1

In this case it's used to concatenate the greater than operator to the cell
value to define the criteria.

=COUNTIF(B1:B2,"5")

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"paul cardarelli" wrote in
message ...
need to know what the & symbol does in a formula? am doing a text formula
and watching a tudor video can't understand what it does please write
me
direct