Would someone explain to me in plain english what "concatenate" means? Thank
you for explaining this to me.

basically, it means "to join" - it allows you to merge teh contents of cells
so you can have more easily understood information.

con·cat·e·nate ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-ktn-t, kn-)
tr.v. con·cat·e·nat·ed, con·cat·e·nat·ing, con·cat·e·nates
To connect or link in a series or chain.
Computer Science. To arrange (strings of characters) into a chained list.

Mark

"countrygirl0712" wrote:

Would someone explain to me in plain english what "concatenate" means? Thank
you for explaining this to me.

"countrygirl0712" wrote in
message ...
Would someone explain to me in plain english what "concatenate" means?
Thank
you for explaining this to me.

Main Entry: concatenate
Pronunciation: -"nAt
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -nat·ed; -nat·ing
: to link together in a series or chain

In Excel, the function can take bits of text from different cells and chain
them together to make longer text, sentences, etc.

CONCATENATE means to join multiple strings together to form one long string.

Example:
A1 John
A2 Smith
A3 =CONCATENATE(A2,", ",A2)

A3 equals "Smith, John" which is the combination of three text strings
"Smith", ", " and "John".

It is better to use & to join text strings

Example:
A3 =A2&", "&A1

"countrygirl0712" wrote:

Would someone explain to me in plain english what "concatenate" means? Thank
you for explaining this to me.

"Sloth" wrote in message
...
CONCATENATE means to join multiple strings together to form one long
string.

Example:
A1 John
A2 Smith
A3 =CONCATENATE(A2,", ",A2)

A3 equals "Smith, John" which is the combination of three text strings
"Smith", ", " and "John".

It is better to use & to join text strings

Why is that method better?

In my opinion...

it is more efficient (11 less charectors to type)
it is simple to type (you can't mispel it)
it is easier to understand (to me anyway)

although I geuss it is up to debate which method is better, and I should
have said "You can also use the ampersand (&) to join strings together."
instead.

"Doug Kanter" wrote:

"Sloth" wrote in message
...
CONCATENATE means to join multiple strings together to form one long
string.

Example:
A1 John
A2 Smith
A3 =CONCATENATE(A2,", ",A2)

A3 equals "Smith, John" which is the combination of three text strings
"Smith", ", " and "John".

It is better to use & to join text strings

Why is that method better?

I was wondering that, too. Why not just use Excel's "&" to combine the
cells:

= A1 & ", " & A2


Ron M.

I just wondered if one method had more options available than the other. I
suppose using CONCATENATE() might make for more easily readable formulae, if
they need to be understandable to someone who didn't create the sheet.

"Sloth" wrote in message
...
In my opinion...

it is more efficient (11 less charectors to type)
it is simple to type (you can't mispel it)
it is easier to understand (to me anyway)

although I geuss it is up to debate which method is better, and I should
have said "You can also use the ampersand (&) to join strings together."
instead.

"Doug Kanter" wrote:

"Sloth" wrote in message
...
CONCATENATE means to join multiple strings together to form one long
string.

Example:
A1 John
A2 Smith
A3 =CONCATENATE(A2,", ",A2)

A3 equals "Smith, John" which is the combination of three text strings
"Smith", ", " and "John".

It is better to use & to join text strings

Why is that method better?