How to combine a column into one cell in Excel
Formula (Excel and Google Sheets)
=TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:A7)Use =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:A7). It joins every value in the column with ", " between them and skips blanks.
- Result on the example
- Aiko Tanaka, Ben Adams, Chidi Okafor, Dana Novak, Eli Haddad in
C2 - Works in
- Excel 2021, 2024 and Microsoft 365
- Google Sheets
- Same formula
See it work
The formula is already in C2. Change any input and the result updates, or edit the formula to experiment.
How it works
TEXTJOIN accepts a whole range, unlike the & operator. The first argument is the separator, and TRUE skips empty cells so the blank row doesn't leave ", ," in the list.
=TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:A7)Result"Aiko Tanaka, Ben Adams, Chidi Okafor, Dana Novak, Eli Haddad"
A2:A76 rows × 1 col: "Aiko Tanaka", "Ben Adams", (empty), "Chidi Okafor", …A range: 6 cells in one column.
TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:A7)"Aiko Tanaka, Ben Adams, Chidi Okafor, Dana Novak, Eli Haddad"TEXTJOIN: Joins text with a delimiter between items.- delimiter
", " - ignore_empty
TRUE - text1
A2:A76 rows × 1 col: "Aiko Tanaka", "Ben Adams", (empty), "Chidi Okafor", …
- delimiter
In Google Sheets
The same formula works in Google Sheets: =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:A7). We ran it in Google Sheets mode on the same data and it returns Aiko Tanaka, Ben Adams, Chidi Okafor, Dana Novak, Eli Haddad.
Other ways to do it
Each one was run on the same example sheet.
| Formula | Result | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| =JOIN(", ",FILTER(A2:A7,A2:A7<>""))Google Sheets | Aiko Tanaka, Ben Adams, Chidi Okafor, Dana Novak, Eli Haddad | Google Sheets also has JOIN, which can't skip blanks by itself, so FILTER removes them first. TEXTJOIN works there too. |
| =TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10),TRUE,A2:A7) | Aiko Tanaka Ben Adams Chidi Okafor Dana Novak Eli HaddadDifferent result | One name per line inside the cell. Turn on Wrap Text to see the lines. Line breaks instead of commas. |
Common mistakes
- CONCATENATE and CONCAT don't add a separator, and
=A2:A7&", "spills one result per row instead of joining. - A cell can hold at most 32,767 characters; TEXTJOIN returns #VALUE! beyond that.
Try it yourself
Same data, empty answer cell. Your formula is graded instantly, then re-checked on changed data, so a typed-in number won't pass.
Combine a column into one cell
C2, combine all the names in A2:A7 into one cell, separated by a comma and a space, skipping the blank.Questions
How do I join only unique values?
Remove repeats first: =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,UNIQUE(A2:A7)).
How do I join only the rows that match a condition?
Filter first: =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,FILTER(A2:A7,B2:B7="Yes")).
Checked by running on 2026-10-30: every formula and result on this page was calculated by the Spreadsheet Practice formula engine, in both Excel and Google Sheets modes.