Tom’s Tutorials For Excel: Organize Your Mailing List With Excel’s Text-To-Columns Feature

Tom’s Tutorials For Excel: Organize Your Mailing List With Excel’s Text-To-Columns Feature

If you are faced with a mailing list where each line of information was entered into a single cell, here’s how you can organize the list by separating it into columns.

Your original mailing list with info bunched into one cell.

What you want: a mailing list organized by columns.

Step 1 of 6
• Select the list.
• From your keyboard, press Alt+D+E to call the Text To Columns Wizard.
• Select the Delimited option and click the Next button.

Step 2 of 6
• Click to place a checkmark in the box to the left of “Other”.
• In the box to the right of “Other” where the red arrow is pointing, enter Ctrl+J.
• Click the Finish button.

Step 3 of 6
• Select the data in column C.
• From your keyboard, press Alt+D+E to call the Text To Columns Wizard.
• Select the Delimited option and click the Next button.

Step 4 of 6
• Click to place a checkmark in the box next to “Comma”.
• Click the Finish button.

Step 5 of 6
• Select the data in column D.
• From your keyboard, press Alt+D+E to call the Text To Columns Wizard.
• This time because you know each state contains two letters, select the Fixed Width option and click the Next button.

Step 6 of 6
• Where the red arrow is pointing, use your mouse to double-click or drag the vertical black arrow bar to the right edge of the states names.
• Click the Finish button.

Your list is now complete after you enter your column header labels and set the desired row heights and column widths.