Excel Flash Fill: Save Time by Joining Data in Seconds
Introduction
Ever found yourself having to manually combine data in Excel, use concatenate or to retype or manually combine cells with data in Microsoft Excel 365? If you have, then you will love this blog post on an Excel 365 feature called Flash Fill that makes it easier to complete and flash fill common tasks.
Flash fill was first introduced in the 2013 version of Microsoft Excel 365 and is available in Excel 365.
It is an amazing tool that detects patterns in the data you are entering into cells in your work sheet and offers the opportunity to fill the rest of the data for you.
In my YouTube short link down below, I show you how you can use Excel’s Flash Fill feature to join multiple cells into one with absolutely NO formulas required in less than 30 seconds….but first….
What Is Flash Fill?
Excel recognises you are entering data that is a pattern into cells in Excel and offers to apply the pattern to the rest of your column (until the first blank row).
This is an awesome way of fast-tracking tasks such as:
- Typing someone’s full name by combining first and last names, Excel’s Flash Fill will automatically generate the same format for your entire list. Just press Enter to accept thesuggestion.
- Perhaps you want to split data into parts, Flash Fill can do that too!
How Flash Fill Can Help
- Save Yourself Time: No longer do you need to manually type or copy data or use formulas to get the result you want, Flash Fill can do it in moments.
- Errors Are Reduced: Providing you check what Excel is offering with Flash Fill, it applies the same pattern consistently in your cells reducing the risk of errors from manual retyping.
- Improves Your Productivity: Fast tracks the cleaning up of data or report preparation
- Easy to Apply: Just a few keystrokes, you can even use the shortcut Ctrl + E and Excel goes to work for you!
Example
Lets say you have a list of staff or customer data in two columns, perhaps first name and last name or customer name and location. You’d like a third column that combines both sets of data into one cell. Instead of typing each one in manually, just type in the first full cell – ie Donna Hanson, or ABC Company Brunswick, Excel recognises the pattern and utilising Flash Fill offers up text to complete the rest of the column, you just need to press Enter.
See It in Action
Check out Flash Fill in my YouTube Short below
In the video, I show you how to easily join the cells into one using Flash Fill. A tip that can literally save you minutes, or hours of retyping data.
Final Thoughts
A hidden nugget in Excel, Flash Fill is just one of Excel’s many awesome tools and features that once you start using it, it will become part of your everyday Excel toolkit, helping you work SMARTER and not HARDER with Microsoft 365.
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