How to merge two columns in excel without losing data

As we work with Excel, we may sometimes need to combine two columns and separate them with characters such as a space or a comma.

Below is an example where I got the data where I had the first and the last name in separate columns, and I wanted to combine the two columns while adding the comma in between the names. 

In this tutorial, I have covered six simple methods you can use to combine two columns in Excel while separating them with a comma (or space or any other delimiter).

Let’s dive in!

Method #1: Combine Two Columns in Excel Using the Ampersand (&) Operator

The ampersand (&) operator is used in Excel to join or concatenate values.

When we use the ampersand operator to join values the result is always text strings, even when the values are numbers. 

Suppose we have the following dataset displaying the first name and the last name in columns A and B, respectively.

We want to combine the values in the two columns into column C using the ampersand operator.

Below are the steps to do this:

1. Select cell C2 and type in the following form
   how to join two columns in excel
   how to merge two columns in excel with text