If you've ever tried to use the CONCATENATE function in Microsoft Excel to merge the values in a range of cells, you know it doesn't work unless you add each cell to the function, one by one.
You might have noticed the following message in the support article for CONCATENATE:
Important: In Excel 2016, Excel Mobile, and Excel Online, this function has been replaced with the CONCAT function. Although the CONCATENATE function is still available for backward compatibility, you should consider using CONCAT from now on. This is because CONCATENATE may not be available in future versions of Excel.
Meet the alternatives: CONCAT and TEXTJOIN
for CONCAT and TEXTJOIN:
Note: This feature is not available in Excel 2016 unless you have an Office 365 subscription. If you are an Office 365 subscriber, make sure you have the latest version of Office.
While it is admirable that Microsoft is finally fixing some of the idiosyncrasies of its software, I fear the future will bring a level of fragmentation unseen since the office 2003 to 2007 switch.
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Monday November 26 2018, @02:46PM (5 children)
Does Libreoffice have a comparable feature that would do the job and work better than Excel feature? Libreoffice can work well, and can be used for generate Office documents. However, I have heard that there are still some corner cases and features of Office that Libreoffice does not support.
(Score: 2, Informative) by TechieRefugee on Monday November 26 2018, @03:26PM (2 children)
LibreOffice has both, although strangely, =CONCATENATE expects you to enter each cell individually, separated by commas, while =CONCAT will happily accept a range of cells. Both just skip over empty cells though if you try to add 'em in.
(Score: 2) by J_Darnley on Monday November 26 2018, @04:48PM
I don't know what use cat has in a math context but an empty cell sounds equivalent to an empty string so "skipping" the cell sounds identical to "concatenating" the cell.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday November 26 2018, @10:20PM
Sounds like LibreOffice Calc's CONCATENATE is designed to match Excel's by name for compatibility. Maybe I missed something?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday November 26 2018, @08:57PM (1 child)
Nice FUD there, bud. "Some vauge edge case that I will not mention. Better stay away from non-MS products!"
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2018, @05:59AM
I guess he just means the programs are not 1:1 bug for bug. Which would be nearly impossible anyways but might theoretically warrant mentioning for completeness.
If somebody has not tried LibreOffice in 2018, then they deserve the Micro$oft offering. :)