Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Combining Numbers and Text in a Cell.
Many times I want a description for my data. One approach is to put the description—a simple text string—near the cell containing the data that needs describing. For instance, a numeric value could go in cell B3, and the unit description in cell C3, which read together may be something like "3.27 miles."
Another approach is to put the description text and the numeric value together. Creating text strings easily accomplishes this feat. Here's a very simple example that displays "1 + 1 is 2."
="1 + 1 is " & 1+1
The quotation marks are important. By making the text string part of a formula, you can combine the description and the value within one cell.
The disadvantage of this approach is formatting the value takes more effort; since the result is a text string, numeric cell formatting does not apply. For example, consider the above formula and the need to display two decimal places. One might naturally display the Format Cell dialog box and then choose a Number format that has two decimal places, but the results would not change. (Remember, the result of the formula is text, not a number.)
To affect the value formatting, use the TEXT function. To force the above results to display the value to two decimal places, use the following formula.
="1 + 1 is " & TEXT(1+1, "0.00")
The different formats you can use with the TEXT function have been covered in other issues of ExcelTips, and you can also find more info in Excel's Help system. Here's an example that displays "Today is " along with today's date. Enter the following formula in some cell:
="Today is " & TEXT(NOW(),"dddd, mmm dd, yyyy")
Again, the quotation marks are important, as you are constructing a text string.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9306) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Combining Numbers and Text in a Cell.
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2016-10-12 08:23:41
PhilW
JD, if you want your formula result to be treated as a numeric value, you can format the cell containing the formula with a custom number format. In your example, you could remove the TEXT function and the &" LITERS" from your formula and apply a custom format to the cell. Something like: 0.00 " LITERS" in the Custom Type field under Format Cells/Number tab.
This will still display with the LITERS label, but the cell value will be numeric instead of text, which is useful if you want to perform any calculations on the cell.
2016-10-12 08:14:18
These techniques whilst are of merit have one important side effect which is the result cannot be used in further calculations should the need arise (or not without a lot of difficulty).
Another way of achieving the same result is to use Custom Formatting of cells so the equivalent formatting for the above examples would be:
1. "3.27 miles." would be formatted as 0.00" miles" cell would be =3.27
2. ="1 + 1 is " & 1+1 would be formatted as "1 + 1 is " 0; cell would be =1+1
3. ="1 + 1 is " & TEXT(1+1, "0.00") would become the format "1 + 1 is " 0.00 ; cell is =1+1
4. ="Today is " & TEXT(NOW(),"dddd, mmm dd, yyyy") would be formatted as "Today is " dddd, mmm dd, yyyy and the cell having the formula =NOW()
2016-06-20 05:41:01
T. van der Kooi
Helpful tip!
2015-09-10 08:15:44
JD
Very helpful!!
I was trying to figure out how to remove additional decimal places in value derived from lookup table and used with additional text...
=TEXT(LOOKUP(H16,'Drop Down and Lookup'!U4:U43,'Drop Down and Lookup'!U5:U43),0)&" LITERS"
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: 
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