# Microsoft Office Application Help - Excel Help forum > Excel Formulas & Functions >  >  add a character to every cell

## pikaz

Hello everyone! I have a question that will hopefully be simple.

i have an excel page with one column and around 2000 rows. The problem is, I need to add an @ symbol at the beginning of each cell. Is there a function that will help me achieve this easily? typing them all by hand would be insane.


Thanks!


pikaz

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## harrywaldron

Hi Pikaz - In another column (like column B for example), you can enter the following formula where "@" would be combined with the contents cell "A" with a leading "at sign".  You can then paste this formula down in column B to create this special field based on column A

*="@"&A1*

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## harrywaldron

P.S. This question was good, as it helped me in some of my daily tasks find a better way  :Smilie: 

I often have to lookup information in Toad, which is an Oracle SQL browser.  In the past, I'd copy these cells to notepad and manually add quotes in front and back, plus a comma at the end.   If there were 00's of entries, I'd put a quote in column A and quote/comma in C and concatenate cells A/B/C. 

Using the formula below, I discovered a way to put quotes and commas around a excel for Toad automatically for a whole column of items. 

*How to put quotes in front of and at the end of cell B1 with a comma on the end*

="'"&B1&"',"

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## swh0llis3565

What if the symbol you wanat to add " is the quotation mark ?
="""&A1&"""  does not work
Is there another formula that will work for this?





> P.S. This question was good, as it helped me in some of my daily tasks find a better way 
> 
> I often have to lookup information in Toad, which is an Oracle SQL browser.  In the past, I'd copy these cells to notepad and manually add quotes in front and back, plus a comma at the end.   If there were 00's of entries, I'd put a quote in column A and quote/comma in C and concatenate cells A/B/C. 
> 
> Using the formula below, I discovered a way to put quotes and commas around a excel for Toad automatically for a whole column of items. 
> 
> *How to put quotes in front of and at the end of cell B1 with a comma on the end*
> 
> ="'"&B1&"',"

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## Alstro

Hey Guys
This post made my life so much easier and saved me so much I that I had to take the time to say thank-you. 

I am converting product codes over to bar codes and I need to put an * in front and back of the code for it to work so I used this post to make life easier. 
="*"&A1&"*"
Sure is a lot easier than going through each cell and adding to it.
Again, Thanks
Tom

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## John90

You can use & or concatinate function. if you have Excel 2013, you can use Flash Fill
How to use Flash Fill in Excel 2013:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPBvWGB4dXM

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## Pete_UK

I don't see much point in responding to a thread which is eight years old.

Pete

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