Google Sheets – Add Column to String to Create URL

concatenateformulasgoogle sheets

I have a spreadsheet of product ID codes that I'd like to turn into links, and from everything I've read, the concat or concatenate functions in Google Sheets should work for that, but so far everything I try results in an error.

What I want to get:

Brand   Product Code    URL 
AP      X527W           http://example.com/search.php?Code=X527W    
AP      X522M           http://example.com/search.php?Code=X527W
AP      Y500M           http://example.com/search.php?Code=X527W

What actually happens, when I use the formula:

=concat('http://example.com/search.php?Code=', B2)

or =concatenate('http://example.com/search.php?Code=', B2)

or ='http://example.com/search.php?Code=' & B2

is #Error.

So how do I concatenate strings in Google Sheets?

Best Answer

Always enclose string literals in double quotation marks.

= "http://example.com/search.php?Code=" & B2

Related Solutions

Google Sheets COUNTIF: Check String in One Column Before Counting in Another

I used this to solve my problem.

=IF(ISTEXT(VLOOKUP($A6,responses!$D:$M,3, FALSE)),"Yes","No")

Google Sheets – Cell Concatenation by Hotkeys

I suspect that a third-party application or browser plug-in is interfering with the Windows clipboard and causing your problem.

Whatever the issue is, you may be able to quickly accomplish your copy/paste goal by using the Web Clipboard tool inside of Google Docs. (Look for the collapsible section called "The web clipboard tool".) The directions are not well written, though. Basically, select A2:A7, click Edit/Web clipboard/Copy. Select your destination cell. Click Edit/Paste (or Paste Special if you prefer. In fact, a few years ago I had a copy/paste issue that I could only resolve by using Paste Special but I cannot remember the details).

Because the Web clipboard goes through the Google server, if it does not work, then submit a bug report.

I believe it will work, though. If it does work, you can troubleshoot the cause of the problem by attempting the same action on another computer, on the same computer but in a different browser, on the same computer but with all background programs disabled (especially anything that looks at your clipboard such as anti-virus, screen capture, MS Office, or a clipboard manager), same browser but with plugins disabled, and/or copy the cells and then paste into notepad (it should put the data on six lines. I thought of at least one more troubleshooting idea but it's 2 am and I forgot it while I was writing the list. Oops. Try opening and editing the spreadsheet in LibreOffice or some other spreadsheet software.

I'm also curious what would happen if instead of selecting only B2, you selected B2:B7 and then pasted.

A potential problem is if you have multiple languages and keyboard inputs installed on your computer. When Windows switches from left-to-right languages to RTL languages, whitespace characters often do crazy things. So, you probably want to avoid selecting Arabic or other RTL languages while editing. If you have MS Maren or the language bar enabled, they might mess with you, too.

In the spreadsheet, is there anything in Script Manager?

I'm either out of ideas or too tired to think of more things. Good luck!

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Google Sheets COUNTIF: Check String in One Column Before Counting in Another

Google Sheets – Cell Concatenation by Hotkeys

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