Excel Video 161 helps you repeat helps you repeat text as many times as you want you want. I don’t use the REPT function as much as I used to, but there are a few instances when you may find it helpful.
Essentially REPT repeats whatever text you enter (remember to put the text in quotes) as many times as you tell Excel to repeat it. In the last Excel Video we were getting rid of extra spaces. If you need to add extra spaces (or zeroes in the video), REPT will help you do it.
When do I use REPT? The most frequent time I use REPT is when I need to match a format in a spreadsheet coming out of an older system. If I need to match a patient ID number from a hospital system or general ledger code from an accounting system that has a fixed number of digits, REPT, combined with LEN, will fill in the necessary spaces or zeroes for me. Once I’ve matched the format, I can use VLOOKUP to look up the information I need.
