I'd just like to show you guys a quick
and easy way to hide social security numbers when you're working with a document.
There may be time when
the Social Security Number is actually helpful
and you just want to leave the last four numbers.
So we're going to act like
you're provide with this list
and you are going to change it over
to this list on the right.
We'll start from scratch.
Take you list here. You can leave it for now.
Make a new column.
We'll just call this "masked".
Since you're masking the SSNs.
You want to use a function called CONCAT.
Which means to join things together.
We're going to concatenate first.
the last four numbers here
with some dummy characters to begin with.
We're going to start the function with an "=" sign.
Start typing CONCATENATE
and Google Docs will tell you
will suggest which one to use. We just want to use CONCAT.
The first value's going to be a string.
You are going to put quotation marks around it.
which means just do exactly this, this part's not a formula.
Just display Xs. Close it with a quotation mark and then insert a comma.
This is where you put the second value now.
And you're going to tell it to
show the right four characters.
in cell B2.
You're going to do that by using the RIGHT function.
Identify the text, which is B2.
and the number of characters, which is 4.
Close that off with a parenthesis.
and the CONCAT function is still open. Close that off with a parenthesis.
You should be done.
Hit enter. There you go. You have a masked SSN.
To copy this down, hit "CTL+C".
Then highlight the other cells where you want it.
I'm holing down the sift key a pressing the down arrow.
I let off of all the keys. Hit "CTL+V" for paste..
and I pasted that formula down.
Now you see that you have
a list here that you're willing to share with people
because it's not revealing the confidential information that this is.
However, you're not done.
You want to get rid of this column.
Let me show you what happens though.
If you get rid of this. If you just highlight it and click delete,
the formula in column C doesn't work anymore.
because it's referencing this.
Do CONTROL+Z to undo that.
What I need to do is copy column C and paste it as values.
So highlight it, then CTL+C to copy it.
Then I go to PASTE SPECIAL, VALUES.
Now, when you look in here, these aren't formulas anymore.
These are actual values.
I can get rid of this middle column.
These masked SSNs stay the way you want them.
You can move them over to make it look better cosmetically.
Then you're done.
One consideratioon with this though is
I did this in Google Docs. Google Docs has pretty good version control.
You don't wan to share this with someone and give them the ability to undo undo undo.
then they'll be able to see the SSNs.
Use your judgement on how to do this. At this point, you may want to copy and paste this into a new document.
That's all for now. I hope that was helpful.