Combining Columns

@Gerhard Schweizer could not agree more. The formula for combining A1, B1 and C1 with a dash between each would be
=A1&"-"&B1&"-"&C1
All three now appear and other things can be added as well instead of a dash. I have a lot of titles for sections that pull dates and text to form a descriptive heading. I have not have much use for Concatenate once I learned the & method.

My hat is off to you Willie. Finally, an expert has taken the time to explain the procedure so even the newest Excel user can apprehend. I must admit, I follow the Tips article mostly to catch you and Rick give the best solutions. Thank you.

@Ray J

You have a point. My solution is rather "high-tech VBA" and not simple in the sense of easy to understand. it's working is probably not obvious for novices. I give hereafter a full explanation of how it works, so more experienced users can perhaps learn something.

But even if you stick with the row by row and then cell by cell solution used in this tip's macro, you can drastically simplify it:

Sub StuffTogether()
Dim cell As Range, Ro As Range, S As String
For Each Ro In Selection.Rows
S = ""
For Each cell In Ro.Cells
S = S & cell.Value & " "
Next cell
Ro.ClearContents
Ro.Cells(1) = Trim(S)
Next Ro
End Sub

If you read this code, it is almost self explanatory even for novices.

This was also my first approach but then my intuition told me that VBA's Join function was ideal for joining (concatenate) the cells of each row in one go (see the macro in my post of 15 May).

VBA's help says: JOIN returns a string created by joining a number of substrings contained in an array.
Syntax: Join(sourcearray[, delimiter]). If you omit the delimiter Join uses a space by default.
Join expects a 2D array as argument. The cells of a row however are a 3D array but Excel's Index method translates it to a 2D array as expected by Join.

I agree with Dean, a User-Defined Function works best for me. I've had my own version for years, almost identical to Dean's below. Advantages:
1. can use any string as a delimiter
2. doesn't destroy the original values
3. doesn't add delimiter for blank cells in the range
4. can use non-contiguous cells. Using Dean's UDF below (with "-" as a delimiter), this would look like =ConcatAll((A2, C2, G2),"-") where a contiguous cell range would look like =ConcatAll(A2:D2,"-").

Fewer lines of code, Willy, but not necessarily simpler (nor intuitive) for the novices that might visit this page.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (Leonardo da Vinci). This tiny macro does the job of the jumbo one in this tip equally well and faster of course:

Sub StuffTogether()
Dim Ro As Range, S As String
For Each Ro In Selection.Rows
S = Join(Application.Index(Ro.Value, 1, 0))
Ro.ClearContents
Ro.Cells(1) = S
Next Ro
End Sub

The kernel of this macro is the combination of VBA's Join function and the array version of Excel's Index method. This one line code does the same work as the 9 lines of the For Next J loop in this tip's macro.

When you work with a program you assume everyone understands the Language/procedure as laid out but we all don't I would recommend that you use screen shots with the descriptions for novices like me, Thanks Bill

I found it easier to do with a UDF. If I need to make it permanent I just paste the results onto themselves as values. The stSep argument allows me to specify a separator - semi-colons for e-mail addresses for example. If I don't need one I just use a space


Function ConcatAll(rgVals as Range, stSep as String) as String

Dim cl as Range

For Each cl in rgVals
If cl.Value <> "" Then
ConcatAll = ConcatAll & cl.Value & stSep
End If
Next cl

ConcatAll = Left(ConcatAll, Len(ConcatAll) - Len(stSep))

End Function

I have always asked myself why Microsoft does not offer an improved version of function CONCATENATE. This function allows just single cells now, and it is rather obsolete since ampersands (&) do the same job. In the improved version, it should be possible to enter one or more arrays (ranges), along with an optional parameter = separator to appear between each element. The new version would even be downward compatible with the old one.