TEXTJOIN / Yearbook Editor

List Students in Photo

As a Yearbook Editor, I often have a list of students associated with a particular photo. I need a quick way to combine all these names into a single, comma-separated string to use directly in the photo caption, rather than typing them out manually.

formula.xlsx
=TEXTJOIN(", ", TRUE, B2:B6)

How it works: The TEXTJOIN function is perfect for concatenating multiple text strings with a specified delimiter. In this formula, ", " is the delimiter, TRUE tells Excel to ignore any empty cells in the range, and B2:B6 is the range containing the student names. This efficiently creates a single, formatted string ready for your yearbook caption.

Data Setup

Student Name
Alice Smith
Bob Johnson
Charlie Brown
Eve Adams
Frank White

Step-by-Step Guide

1

Identify the column and range containing the student names you wish to join (e.g., B2:B6).

2

Decide on the delimiter you want between each name (e.g., a comma and a space: ", ").

3

Determine if you want to ignore empty cells within your selected range. For most caption lists, you'll want to ignore them (TRUE).

4

Enter the TEXTJOIN formula into an empty cell: `=TEXTJOIN(", ", TRUE, B2:B6)`.

5

Press Enter to see the combined list of names.