Mastering the CONCATENATE and TEXTJOIN Functions in Excel: What’s the Difference?

Mastering the CONCATENATE and TEXTJOIN Functions in Excel: What’s the Difference?

Combining text from multiple cells is a common Excel task. Two key functions help with this: CONCATENATE (older) and TEXTJOIN (newer and smarter).

🔹 1. CONCATENATE Function

=CONCATENATE(A2, " ", B2)

This joins cell A2 and B2 with a space in between.

But it’s limited — no built-in delimiter control, and can't ignore blank cells.

🔹 2. TEXTJOIN Function (Excel 2016+)

=TEXTJOIN(" ", TRUE, A2:C2)

This joins all cells from A2 to C2 using a space. The TRUE argument skips blanks automatically!

🔹 Use Case Comparison:

• Use CONCATENATE when working with older Excel versions.
• Use TEXTJOIN for dynamic, cleaner combinations — great for dashboards, clean exports, etc.

🔹 Example:

If A2 = “John”, B2 = “”, C2 = “Doe”:

=TEXTJOIN(" ", TRUE, A2:C2) → John Doe

✅ Conclusion

TEXTJOIN is the modern and flexible alternative to CONCATENATE. Use it to build clean labels, addresses, or summaries from multiple fields.

🧩 Bonus: Try using TEXTJOIN with dynamic ranges in dashboards!

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