A strong and adaptable tool for data management and information organization is Google Sheets. It offers a variety of tools to make working with data easier, including the option to divide cells into two or more columns. When you need to divide data into multiple categories, such as first name and last name or date and time, splitting cells might be handy.
We’ll walk you through the process of splitting cells into two or more columns in Google Sheets in this blog post. Also, the reasons for splitting cells in Google Sheets into two or more two columns have been explained.
Why We Split Cells in Google Sheets?
Among the various reasons for splitting the cells into two or more cells, the major reasons are:
- Separating Data: To further analyze the data, you can decide to divide a column of full names into first-name and last-name columns.
- Data Entry: It will be simpler to read and analyze the data later if you divide the cell into two or more columns instead of typing everything into one.
- Data Manipulation: When working with data that needs to be adjusted or reorganized, splitting cells might be helpful. You may make it simpler to insert, filter, and analyze data in many ways by dividing cells.
How to Split Cells in Two Columns in Google Sheets?
For a better understanding, we considered the name “Employee Name” and split cells:
We split the names into their “First Name” and “Last Name” and to split the cells into two columns, follow the below-mentioned steps.
Step 1: Select the Cell to Split
First, select the cells which are going to split into two more cells or columns:
Step 2: Choose the “Split text to columns” Option
After selection, Click on the “Data” option in the menu bar and then choose “Split text to columns”:
Step 3: Choose Separator Option
After choosing the “Split text to columns” option, mention the “Separator” at which the text is supposed to split. There are different options such as “Comma”, ”Space”, or “Full Stop”, we will choose the “Space” Option:
The names are split into the first and last names by splitting the cells.
How to Split Cells in Multiple Columns in Google Sheets?
The split formula is used to split cells into two or more two columns. This formula splits the cells on the basis of the “Delimiter” where the delimiter can be known as the “Separator”. For example, we split the cell A2 by defining the delimited of “Space” using the split formula:
=SPLIT(A2, " ")
Apply the formula to the entire column by using the methods mentioned in the blog:
The names have been split into “First” and “Last” names by using the “Split” formula. To understand the “Split” formula usage for splitting the cells into more than two columns, we will insert two commas between the name:
Now we will split the cells by using the Split formula with the delimiter “,”:
=SPLIT(A2, ",")
The cells have been split into three columns based on the delimiters in Google Sheets.
Conclusion
To split cells in Google Sheets, we can go to the “Data” and then the “Split text to columns” option, also another method is by using the “Split” function of Google Sheets. The Split function splits the cells on the basis of a defined delimiter. This post explained both the methods of splitting the cells in Google Sheets in detail with a demonstration of the examples.
