Combiner.CombineTextByLengths

Combiner

Returns a function that combines a list of text values by padding or truncating each to a fixed length.

Syntax

Combiner.CombineTextByLengths(lengths as list, optional quoteStyle as nullable number) as function

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`lengths`	`list`	Yes	A list of integers specifying the fixed width for each text value. Values shorter than their length are padded with spaces; longer values are truncated.
`quoteStyle`	`number`	No	A QuoteStyle value specifying how to handle quoting. Defaults to QuoteStyle.None.

Return Value

function — A function that takes a list of text values and combines them into a fixed-width string.

Remarks

Combiner.CombineTextByLengths returns a function that produces fixed-width output. Each value in the input list is padded with trailing spaces or truncated to match the corresponding length. This is useful for generating fixed-width file formats or aligning columnar text output.

Examples

Example 1: Create fixed-width output from Sales data

let
    Subset = Table.SelectColumns(Table.FirstN(Sales, 3), {"CustomerName", "Product"}),
    CombinerFn = Combiner.CombineTextByLengths({10, 12}),
    Combined = Table.ToList(Subset, CombinerFn)
in
    #table({"FixedWidth"}, List.Transform(Combined, each {_}))

Result

	FixedWidth
1	Alice Widget A
2	Bob Gadget B
3	Charlie Widget C

Compatibility

✓ Power BI Desktop✓ Power BI Service✓ Excel Desktop✓ Excel Online✓ Dataflows✓ Fabric Notebooks