How to concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks in Excel?

Excel’s Concatenate function can help you to combine multiple cell values into one cell quickly, if there are some blank cells within the selected cells, this function will combine the blanks as well. But, sometime, you just want to concatenate cells with data and skip the empty cells, how could you finish it in Excel?

Concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks with formula

Concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks with User Defined Function

Concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks with Kutools for Excel

Concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks with formula

Supposing, I have the following cells data which populated with some blank cells, to combine the rows into one cell, you can apply a formula to solve it.

Please enter this formula into a blank cell where you want to put the concatenated result, =A1&IF(A2<>"","-"&A2,"")&IF(A3<>"","-"&A3,"")&IF(A4<>"","-"&A4,"")&IF(A5<>"","-"&A5,""), then drag the fill handle right to the cells that you want to apply this formula, and the values of rows have been combined without the blank cells as following screenshot shown:

Tips: If there are more rows need to be concatenated, you should use the IF function to join the cells, such as =A1&IF(A2<>"","-"&A2,"")&IF(A3<>"","-"&A3,"")&IF(A4<>"","-"&A4,"")&IF(A5<>"","-"&A5,"")&IF(A6<>"","-"&A6,""). The "–" character in the formula can be replaced with any other delimiters that you need.

Concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks with User Defined Function

If there are multiple cells needed to be combined, the above formula will be too complex to execute, so, you can use the following User Defined Function to solve it.

1. Hold down the Alt + F11 keys in Excel, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. Click Insert > Module, and paste the following macro in the Module Window.

VBA code: Concatenate cells ignore blanks:

Function Concatenatecells(ConcatArea As Range) As String
'updateby Extendoffice
  For Each n In ConcatArea: nn = IIf(n = "", nn & "", nn & n & "/"): Next
  Concatenatecells = Left(nn, Len(nn) - 1)
End Function

3. Save and close this code window, go back to the worksheet, then enter this formula: =concatenatecells(A1:A5) into a blank cell, and drag the fill handle right to the cells to apply this formula, and you will get the following result:

Tips: In the above VBA code, you can change the“/” character to any other delimiters that you need.

Concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks with Kutools for Excel

Excepting the boring formula and code, here, I can recommend a handy tool-Kutools for Excel, with its powerful Combine utility, you can concatenate multiple cells into one cell with no efforts.

After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as follows:

1. Select the cells value that you want to combine.

2. Click Kutools > Merge & Split > Combine Rows, Columns or Cells without Losing Data, see screenshot:

3. In the popped out dialog:

• (1.) Choose the type of cells that you want to combine, you can combine columns, combine row and combine all cells into singe cell;
• (2.) Specify a separator for your concatenated contents;
• (3.) Choose the location to put the result, you can put the result to top cell or bottom cell;
• (4.) Specify how to deal with the combined cells, you can keep or delete contents from those combined cells, and you can also merge those combined cells.

4. After finishing the settings, click Ok button, and the selected rows have been combined into one cell separately, and it has skipped the blanks automatically, see screenshot:

Download and free trial Kutools for Excel Now !

Demo: Concatenate cells ignore or skip blanks with Kutools for Excel