How to Use Text-to-Columns in Excel

When adding information to a spreadsheet, most take the approach of it has to be right the first time, or it’ll involve lots of mundane copy/pasting to fix it later. Excel has dozens of features to help with these sorts of problems if you change your mind later and would like to format your entries in a different way. One of these, Text to Columns, allows you to move text from one column into another, effectively splitting text entries into two separate spaces.

The best use case is for names, but it’ll come in handy for lots of other surprising things the more you use Excel.

1. Open Excel and start a new Blank workbook.

2. Add entries to the first column and select them all.

3. Choose the Data tab atop the ribbon.

4. Select Text to Columns.

5. Ensure Delimited is selected and click Next.

6. Clear each box in the Delimiters section and instead choose Comma and Space.

7. Click Finish.

Microsoft Excel Tips