How do I combine a cell value with a string in a Google Spreadsheets formula?

Question

I have the following IF condition in some cell:

=IF(A1>A2, "value is <C5>", "value is <D5>")

where <C5> and <D5> should be the values of cells C5 and D5.

I know it is a simple question but searching was not successful. I don't really know how to phrase this.

@VidarS.Ramdal text is mandatory. cannot be omitted. I need something like: "value is %s, D5". don't know what the syntax is. — idanshmu, Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 14:24

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-13 12:57:20Z

48

=IF(A1>A2, "value is " & C5, "value is " & D5)

This is equal to, but less verbose than:

=IF(A1>A2, CONCAT("value is ", C5), CONCAT("value is ", D5))

As to your follow-up comment, you can concatenate several strings and values:

=IF(A1>A2, "value is " & C5 & " right now, but could be " & D5, "value is " & D5 & " at the moment, but could be " & C5)

CommunityBot

1

answered Apr 28, 2014 at 14:26

Vidar S. Ramdal

17.4k11 gold badges71 silver badges82 bronze badges

lovely. 10x a lot.
– idanshmu
Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 14:32
BDW, what if I have multiple cell values that I want to insert in different places in the text?
– idanshmu
Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 14:35
See revised answer.
– Vidar S. Ramdal
Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 14:40
2

The & is clutch. Thanks for putting both versions, I knew exactly what was happening.
– Joshua Dance
Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 23:34
1

The CONCAT function is equivalent to & and works on non-string values as well, but only takes 2 arguments. The CONCATENATE function takes 1 or more arguments and only works on strings.
– chharvey
Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 4:43

| Show 2 more comments

1 Answer 1