You can just type the spaces and then your text - that should work OK. Or you can use a single quote mark, like this:

' text

I need to do this in over 5000 cells, is there a macro?

You could use the CONCATENATE command, and then copy and paste it as any times as needed. If you have text "ABCD" in cell A1, and in cell B1 put =CONCATENATE(" ", A1), then cell B1 will end up with " ABCD"

insert a blank column on the right side of the column in which you are wishing to change. Try this formula in the blank cells:

= (space,space)&(cell with text in it)
and then hit enter. Copy the formula all the way down. Highlight your newly inserted column, right click, copy/special paste/Values.

Let me know if this helps or if you need further assistance.

Dep, I tried your formula just to be doing it. I could get it to work by putting this: =$A$3&B3 where A3 was an otherwise blank cell with two spaces and B3 contained the text which needed two spaces in front of it. But it did not seem to recognize the "space" in your formula. I kept getting the #NAME? Error. Did I miss something? Did you mean to actually put in "space,space", or just hit the space bar twice? I am in Excel 03.

The forum strips out extra spaces in sentences. You have to use code tags to get text to display in raw format. This is the formula he suggests, copy it as is including the quotes:


=" " & A1

That works. Thanks.

Insert a new column. Enter this formula down all relevant rows. This reads: put Text 1 and Text 2 together. In this case "space space" and whatever is in B1

=CONCATENATE(" ",B1)

You can then hide the B column to reduce user confusion.