Expert: Richard Roberts - 3/8/2006

Question
Hi Rechard,
I have a first name + family name in colomn A1 (for example, Bill Clinton).
I wish to split the two names to 2 cells (B1 = Bill, C1 = Clinton).
Please advise.
Moshe  

Answer
Moshe
That's amazing I had exactly the same question yesterday from someone else.
I'm going to send you the answer that I gave her.  I've copied and pasted that answer below.



It sounds like you have the full name in the cell
I.E. John,Doe.

If that is the case what you can do to put the names in two columns is use the text to columns feature.
First paint the column or the names you want to convert to two columns.

Then go to toolbar/data/text to columns

A screen will pop up where you can first select delimited or fixed width.

Unless the width of the names is exactly the same, you would need to select delimited, then clic next.

Now you have a choice as to what type of delimiter you want to use as the separator of the names. If you have a comma between names then you can clic the comma box, if you have a space between names then you can clic the space box. If there is something else between the name for example a slash
/, then you can select other and put the slash in the space next to other. In any event you only need one delimiter.

After making that selection clic next. You can now see in the window how the delimiter will work. If it looks ok then clic finish.

That should do it.

Try it on a sample sheet first to see how it works.

Hope this helps

Richard