Format or separate text into columns in (Apple) Numbers

In this short video, I will show how to quickly and easily separate text from one cell into two columns without using any special scripts or services.

#Numbers #Columns

[docchoc]

Many viewers have had trouble getting this to work as described in the video. I was one of them. After a bit of experimenting I found a solution. Use TABS instead of COMMA when replacing the space. Next paste your tab-separated text into a TextEdit document. Next you copy the text from TextEdit and paste into Numbers!! (Mysterious, I know!)

This will separate the text properly into separate columns in Numbers. And you don't have to select more than one cell. When you paste the tab separated text into one cell (and you can have multiple tabs -->columns) they will spread out to as many columns as you have tabs.

Remember in Pages "Find and Replace" you need to hold the Alt key while typing TAB for it to be programmed properly.

This worked for me in version 11.2 of Numbers. Good luck!

[AlexPriceMusician]

Thank you Ashley! This was such a thoughtful video to make - only the information we need and no fluff. Quick and easy.

[pgk]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Info was on topic, with no distracting music, no puns, no annoying pop-up graphics (like the words "hot tip" engulfed in animated flames), etc. The absence of these translates to 'you respect my time'. Thank you.

[lauriewillis]

Thank you! I was researching this in the Apple forums and people were saying it couldn't be done and it was stupid to want to do this. Your method is simple and effective. Exactly what I wanted to do.

[CandiRayne]

THIS WAS SUPER HELPFUL!!!! UGH! Your video should have shown up as the number 1 google search instead of that man with all that CODE!!!! APPLE NEEDS TO MAKE THIS SEPARATOR FEATURE INNATE! Thanks much!

[lonestaryall]

I want to say thank you! I have been searching on how to do this on my Mac and you by far should be #1 in rank! It worked perfectly! You saved me hours and hours of work! Thank you and God bless you!

[judydbl]

You are a genius!! Thank you so much! The scripts method was way beyond my technical ability.

[jdhhwkb]

Thank you so much. You saved me so much time...

[tomcat]

Ashley, I love you. Thank you SO much, I've been needing this tool forever!!!!

[elams]

You are awesome. Was going nuts until I saw this vid. Thanks!

[VincentvanGaasbeek]

extremly helpful indeed. Thanks Ashley, you're the best.

[question-base]

Thank you Ashley! This was exactly what I needed! Thank you!

[jasminfoxofficial]

THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS! God Bless you love ❤

[braoudap]

Was so happy to see this solution. Alas, however, I followed it absolutely to the letter and it simply won't work. Tried it five times. In fact, it actually takes the text from the clipboard and replaces both column A and column B with the imported text, replete with comma. (ie. John, Smith -- John, Smith). I noticed you posted this video last year. Is it possible this doesn't work on the newest version of Numbers? I'm using version 11.2 (7032.0.145).

[thezeeman]

Saved me hours of doing it manually. That you so much. Nicely done.

[sarah.pabody]

Such a simple, incredibly helpful tutorial. THANK YOU!

[MBCyclist]

Very clever! Thanks for saving me a bunch of effort and also probably frustration.

[clair]

THANK YOU!!! This fix saved me!! I appreciate it very much!

[brucemclean]

Thank you Ashley. Agreed, a massive time saver and so easy to do

[qeoejlx]

This was tremendously helpful and made a huge project I was working on so much simpler. Thank you!