From the course: Excel 2016: Tips and Tricks

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Split column data using Text to Columns and Flash Fill

Split column data using Text to Columns and Flash Fill

From the course: Excel 2016: Tips and Tricks

Start my 1-month free trial

Split column data using Text to Columns and Flash Fill

“

- [Voiceover] On this worksheet called Mixed Names we've got data in columns A and B. And eventually we'll have additional data off to the right. And of course this list could be extremely large. Two major problems exist in its current state. We cannot sort this list by last name. You see how the names are ordered there: first name, last name in column A. We cannot sort the list by state, we cannot sort it by zip code. There're two major approaches to cleaning up this data. On the Data tab you'll see a choice called Text to Columns. Now as I slide over this, you'll see the description: "Split a single column of text into multiple columns. "For example, you can separate a column of full names "into separate first and last name columns. "You choose how to split it up: fixed width "or split at each comma, period, or other character." So that's a standard technique and it works well. But even better much of the time and often faster is a new feature called Flash Fill. "Automatically fill…

Contents