TextJoin - An Excel 2016 Text Function

If you need to join a lot of text together in a string, check out TEXTJOIN.

It is a text function that was introduced in Excel 2016 to join text in cells together.
Initially, you might think that the function is not worth investigating. After all, we already have the ampersand (& ) as well as the CONCATENATE function to join text together.
However, TEXTJOIN has a decided advantage if you need to join multiple cells together because it only requires you to specify the delimiter once.
The syntax is =TEXTJOIN(delimiter, ignore empty, text…)

Let me give you a simple example using a person’s first, middle and last name and their professional designation.

If we used CONCATENATE, the equation would be : =CONCATENATE(A2,” “,B2,” “,C2,” “,D2). With TEXTJOIN the equation is  =TEXTJOIN(” “,,A2:D2).

and this result would display: 

Lisa Marie Brown CPA

Clearly, TEXTJOIN is a bit simpler and a bit more elegant if you have a lot of cells that you want to join together and you want to use the same delimiter throughout.

Different Delimiters
You can use different delimiters if you wish and it is still simpler than CONCATENATE as well.
In this example, I wanted spaces after each of the names but I wanted a comma before the professional designation so I used =TEXTJOIN(” “,,A2,B2,C2,”,”,D2) and Excel displayed  the following result.

Lisa Marie Brown , CPA

So, add TEXTJOIN to your arsenal of text functions if you have Excel 2016.

Searching for Files with Keywords

Using Keywords to Find Your Excel Files

If you have lots and lots of files, you know how difficult it can be to locate one, particularly if you did not name it well. Plus, let's face it, memories don't improve with age.

So, here is a solution. When you create the file, add some keywords, a title and the author's name to make it easier to locate the file at a later date.

It is very easy to do, however, you do have to remember to add this information so that you can search for it later:)

1. Click on File and then select Info.
2. Click the Properties drop-down arrow - located over on the far right side of the screen and then select Advanced Properties.
3. Click on the Summary Tab and enter keywords that relate to the file. 
4.  Click OK.

 To search, simply go to the Windows Explorer window and in the search box, located on the far right of the window, type in one of your keywords.  Your file should display. You can also search on author, a category or a title as well.

Lots of options to find your file.