How to Split a Single cell or Row into Multiple Rows in Excel

In Excel, splitting a single row or a single cell's contents into multiple rows is a useful skill, particularly when reorganizing data for reports, databases, or data processing applications. This tutorial will guide you through various methods to achieve this, whether you're working within a single cell or across multiple cells in a row. These techniques will help you manipulate and structure your data more effectively, enhancing both usability and readability.

• Use the TEXTSPLIT function to split a single cell into multiple rows
• Use Kutools to easily split a single cell into multiple rows

• Use Paste Transpose feature to split a single row into multiple rows (single column)
• Use Kutools to easily split a single row into multiple rows (multiple columns)

Split text in a single cell into multiple rows

As shown in the screenshot below, the order detail is in a single cell, and the data needs to be split using a slash to extract different types of information such as Item, Quantity, Unit Price and Date. To accomplish this task, this section demonstrates 2 methods.

Use the TEXTSPLIT function to split a single cell into multiple rows

If you are using Excel for Microsoft 365, the TEXTSPLIT function method can easily help. Please do as follows.

Step 1: Select a cell to output the result. Here I select the cell B6

Step 2: Type the below formula and press Enter

=TEXTSPLIT(A2,,"/")

All text in A2 is split into separate rows based on the 'slash' separator.

Use Kutools to easily split a single cell into multiple rows

Although Excel's TEXTSPLIT feature is very useful, it is limited to Excel for Microsoft 365 users. Moreover, if you have multiple cells in a column to split, you will need to apply different formulas individually to each cell to get the results. In contrast, Kutools for Excel's Split Cells feature is working across all Excel versions. It provides a straightforward, efficient solution to split cells into multiple rows or columns at once with just a few clicks.

After installing Kutools for Excel, click Kutools > Merge & Split > Split Cells to open the Split Cells dialog box.

1. Select the range of cells containing the text you wish to split.
2. Select the Split to Rows option.
3. Select a delimiter you need (here I select the Other option and enter a slash), then click OK.
   
   
4. Select a destination cell and click OK to get all split data
   
   

Split text in a single row into multiple rows

If you want to split text in a single row (multiple cells) into multiple rows, try the methods in this section.

Use Paste Transpose feature to split a single row into multiple rows (single column)

Normally we can copy the single row and then apply the Paste Transpose feature to convert this single row to multiple rows (one column) in Excel. Please do as follows:

1. Select the single row and copy it by pressing the Ctrl + C keys simultaneously.

2. Select the first cell of destination range, right click and select Transpose  under the Paste Options. See screenshot:

Note: In Excel 2007, you can click Home > Paste > Transpose to paste the row as a column.

And then the single row is pasted as one column with multiple rows. See screenshot above.

Use Kutools to easily split a single row into multiple rows (multiple columns)

Sometimes you may need to split one single row to multiple rows with multiple columns. To meet this requirement, we can apply Kutools for Excel’s Transform Range utility.

1. Select the single row and click Kutools > Range > Transform Range. See screenshot:

2. In the opening Transform Range dialog box, in the Transform type section check the Single row to range option, in the Columns per record section check Fixed value option and type a number into right box, and click the Ok button. See screenshot:

3. In the second Transform Range dialog box, specify the first cell of destination range and click the OK button.

Now you will see the single row has been split into multiple rows with multiple columns as below screenshot shown:

Demo: split one single row to multiple rows in Excel

Reverse splitting and combine multiple rows/columns into to one cell in Excel

Kutools for Excel’s Combine Columns or Rows utility can help Excel users easily combine multiple columns or rows into one columns/row without losing data. In addition, Excel users can wrap these combined text strings with carriage or hard return.

Get a 30-day full-featured free trial now!

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