How do I move cells?

I have all of my data in a single column which looks like this:

NAME (xxx)
DESCRIPTION
[BLANK]
[BLANK]
NAME (xxx)
[BLANK]
[BLANK]
NAME (xxx)
DESCRIPTION

Sometimes there is a name+description pair, sometimes there is just a name. Every entry is separated by two blank cells.

I want to move the description cell to the column on the right and up one cell so that the name/description pairs are laid out over two columns rather than have everything in one linear column.

This seems like a fairly straightforward thing, but I’ve been ripping my hair out trying a lot of things and I can’t figure out what to do.

Thanks in advance!

Spreadsheets are not made for datakeeping as databases are. If spreadsheets are used for datakeeping nonetheless they should obey a few of the best proven principles as if a database was used. I’m giving them in a “pragmatic wording”.

  1. One row one dataset!

  2. Datasets are contiguous! (Rows contiguously filled!, No interspersions of any kind!)

  3. Same column, same kind of content!

  4. No splitting of equally structured data!

  5. Data that may change are kept (and edited if needed) in exactly one place from which they may be polled by reference.

You may use a sheet similar to the attached example to convert your data according to the mentioned principles. This done ‘Copy’ / ‘Paste special’ the data abandoning the formulae and never go back to what you had.

If you need “pretty formats” for printing, eg. Collect the data from the source where they are kept as described above by formulae, but never try to pretty format the original data.

ask56353MakeUsaeble Data001.ods

===Edit 2020-08-23 about 18:00 UTC===
Being back here five years later, I want to point out an alternative solution including some manual activity, but relying on simpler and less specialized formulas.

It is based on the usage of the AutoFilter tool on a few helper columns distinguishing the different kinds of rows (Name / Description in the given case.) It may be easier adapted to similar but different cases.

See this attachment (second sheet).

THANK YOU! :slight_smile: