Cleaning Data with OpenRefine: Merging Column Values

OpenRefine can combine the contents of columns. Sometimes, data is in two columns when it could be consolidated into a single column. This can make for easier analysis later if you don't need such granular data and are looking for more of a broad overview. 

Click on the down arrow next to the column header of the leftmost column you would like to join and on the dropdown menu, go to Edit column > Join columns.

On this popup box, you can select the other columns you would like to join. You can choose to insert a separator between columns, such as a comma (,), dash (-), or space ( ). You can also replace null values and choose whether you want the results pasted in the same column or copied into a new column. Finally, you can choose whether you would like to keep or delete the original joined columns.