How to Split Text by Delimiter in Google Sheets

The Old Way (SPLIT)

SPLIT takes a cell and a delimiter and spills the pieces across columns to the right.

Clean data splits fine. Then you hit a row that used a pipe instead of a comma, so you pass every possible separator as a character set.

Now a new problem appears. SPLIT treats each character as its own delimiter, so "Acme, Inc." breaks into two fields at the comma you wanted to keep. Rows land in different column counts, and anything downstream that expects three columns starts reading the wrong field.

The FITS Way (Just Ask)

With FITS, you name the fields you want instead of the characters to cut on.

The AI reads the row and decides which separators are structural and which are part of a value. A comma inside "Acme, Inc." stays put. A row that used a semicolon still lands in the right three fields. Every row comes back with the same shape.

When to Use Each

If every row uses one delimiter and no value contains it, SPLIT is free and instant. Reach for =FITS() when separators are inconsistent, when values contain the delimiter, or when the split is really a parse. Related jobs use the same idea: separating first and last names, combining text from multiple cells when you need to go the other direction, and removing text after a character when you only want the first piece. For the full picture, read the guide to automating Google Sheets tasks you used to need regex for.