[Macpartners] need a way to separate names

[John J. Fothergill, Jr.]

Hi Phyllis,

You could have left the commas in and used them as the delimiter 
character. With them gone, you can use the space in with the following. 
First be sure there is an empty column immediately to the right of the 
column with "last name, first name". Click on the column heading (letter 
A) then choose from the menu "Data > Text to Columns..." in the dialog 
box that follows, be sure that the "Delimited" radio button is selected 
then click "Next". In the next window place a check mark in the "Space" 
box. You should see your list separate in the Data preview window at the 
bottom of this box. At this point, there is no reason to continue to 
step 3, just click "Finish". Your names will be placed into separate 
columns.

John

Phyllis Collymore wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have been sent an excel spreadsheet which has names in the format,
> 
> last name, first name
> 
> I know how to remove the commas en mass, but do not know of a way to  
> separate the first and last names easily.  Once the commas are out, I  
> cut the first name out and paste it into an adjacent column.  Does  
> anyone know of a way to separate the names into two columns, as I  
> need to have the first and last names as separate data fields.
> 
> Thanks for any better ideas, as the cut&paste method is time consuming.
> 
> Phyllis
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-- 
John J. Fothergill, Jr.
Excel Users Group Coordinator
77 Massachusetts Avenue, W92-208A
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
http://web.mit.edu/xlug
(617) 253-5312
jjfothjr at mit.edu