As I'm currently working a lot with Excel, I get a lot of questions like "How do I do this?" or "How do I do that?". Yesterday someone asked me how to convert a data string to a MAC address. The standard format for printing MAC addresses in human-friendly form is six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens (-) or colons (:), in transmission order, e.g. 01-23-45-67-89-ab, 01:23:45:67:89:ab. In this article I'll give you examples of how to add, remove or change the separator for MAC addresses in MS Excel or OO Spreadsheet.

Adding a seperator (change 0123456789ab into 01-23-45-67-89-ab)

=CONCATENATE(MID(A2;1;2);"-";MID(A2;3;2);"-";MID(A2;5;2);"-";MID(A2;7;2);"-";MID(A2;9;2);"-";MID(A2;11;2))
=CONCATENATE(MID(A2;1;2);":";MID(A2;3;2);":";MID(A2;5;2);":";MID(A2;7;2);":";MID(A2;9;2);":";MID(A2;11;2))

An alternate solution was send in by Franco Magliaro
=MID(A2,1,2)&"-"&MID(A2,3,2)&"-"&MID(A2,5,2)&"-"&MID(A2,7,2)&"-"&MID(A2,9,2)&"-"&MID(A2,11,2)
=MID(A2,1,2)&":"&MID(A2,3,2)&":"&MID(A2,5,2)&":"&MID(A2,7,2)&":"&MID(A2,9,2)&":"&MID(A2,11,2)

Removing a separator (change 01-23-45-67-89-ab into 0123456789ab)

=CONCATENATE(MID(A2;1;2);MID(A2;4;2);MID(A2;7;2);MID(A2;10;2);MID(A2;13; 2);MID(A2;16;2))
or the easy way
=SUBSTITUTE(A2;"-";"")
=SUBSTITUTE(A2;":";"")

Changing a separator (change 01-23-45-67-89-ab into 01:23:45:67:89:ab)

=CONCATENATE(MID(A2;1;2);":";MID(A2;4;2);":";MID(A2;7;2);":";MID(A2;10;2 );":";MID(A2;13;2);":";MID(A2;16;2))
=CONCATENATE(MID(A3;1;2);"-";MID(A3;4;2);"-";MID(A3;7;2);"-";MID(A3;10;2 );"-";MID(A3;13;2);"-";MID(A3;16;2))
or the easy way :-)
=SUBSTITUTE(A2;"-";":")
=SUBSTITUTE(A2;":";"-")

An alternate solution, to convert the Cisco 0123.4567.89ab MAC format to the F5 load balancer MAC format of 01:23:45:67:89:ab, was send in by Mike Wintrode.
To add an extra twist, the F5 load balancer also removes the leading "0" in any pair, so for instance 00:14:0F:80:a3:01 would show as 0:14:f:80:a3:1. So Mike created the following:
=CONCATENATE(IF(MID($A2,1,1)="0",MID($A2,2,1),MID($A2,1,2)),":",IF(MID($A2,3,1)="0",MID($A2,4,1),MID($A2,3,2)),":",IF(MID($A2,6,1)="0",MID($A2,7,1),MID($A2,6,2)),":",IF(MID($A2,8,1)="0",MID($A2,9,1),MID($A2,8,2)),":",IF(MID($A2,11,1)="0",MID($A2,12,1),MID($A2,11,2)),":",IF(MID($A2,13,1)="0",MID($A2,14,1),MID($A2,13,2)))
The basic premise utilizes an "IF" statement to check for a preceding "0" and if present to return the next character, and if not to return both characters.

Adam Heath was so kind to send me an Exel template which uses most of the above formulas
(thanks Adam!), which you can download here.

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