When pasting text into a spreadsheet sometimes you do not want one cell to have all of the text. The best example being when you have first and last name in the same cell.
Data Menu
Highlight the cells that have text you wish to split up. Use the Data menu to choose “Split text to columns.”
Choose Separator
After selecting “Split text to columns” notice a subtle “Separator” menu on the highlighted cells. Click on the “Detect automatically” and switch to whatever delineator or separator you choose. In the case of first and last name your delineator will be “Space.” However, comma is a common separator. Whatever symbol you want to break up your text at.
Separator is Eaten
Note that when you choose the separator, it will be “eaten.” When I have last, first my separator is … comma space. When the text is split up by the comma space both the comma and space will no longer exist and I will be left with only the last name in the the one column and first name in the next column.