From the course: Excel 2016: Cleaning Up Your Data

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Split data into columns with the Text to Columns feature

Split data into columns with the Text to Columns feature

From the course: Excel 2016: Cleaning Up Your Data

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Split data into columns with the Text to Columns feature

- [Instructor] The common problem with data that you get from other sources is too much information in the same column. Now, that's not always bad, and we have to take this on a case by case basis. But on this worksheet called Text to Columns, we've got some names in column A. Now, imagine this as part of a larger list with other information off to the right of it. In this example, you only see a single column. But we cannot sort this list by last name in its current state because the names are in first name, last name order. We could, however, split these into separate columns, and then we could either rejoin them in reverse order, or maybe just leave them in separate columns, then we can sort our list by last name. So, Text to Columns usually begins with the idea that we probably will need an extra column, typically to the right. In this case, we're going to split these names. Notice that none of them have middle initials, they're all single names and we don't have any Mary Jo's or…

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