Nope. They have nothing to do with cats. Sorry. If you’re here for the cat memes, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.
They are two Google Sheets formulas that are very useful if you’re organizing information in Google Sheets. Have first names in one column and last names in another, but need them combined? Concat has your back. Have a student’s grade number, but need it to be written out (7th grade instead of just 7) for a mail merge? Concat is here to help.
Need to combine more than 2 things? i.e., first, middle & last name? Concatenate can help you out. It’s the same as Concat but it works for more than 2 items.
The & operator can perform the same tasks. It’s all personal preference.
Some tips are listed below the GIF.
- Basic format: =CONCAT(first thing, second thing)
- =CONCATENATE(first thing, second thing, third thing, fourth thing….)
- =first thing & second thing & third thing
- The items in the formula can be cell references like here: =CONCAT(A1, B1)
- The items in the formula can be regular text, just use quotation marks: =CONCAT(“me”, “ow)”.
- When combining text strings, it puts them together with nothing in between them, so if you want a space, you’ll have to add it yourself – use ” ” if needed – the space is held between those quotation marks.
