Part I: Getting Started with Excel
FIGURE 5.7
Merge worksheet cells to make them act as if they were a single cell.
You can merge any number of cells occupying any number of rows and columns. In fact, you
can merge all 17 billion cells in a worksheet into a single cell—although there probably isn’t a
good reason to do so, except maybe to play a trick on a co-worker.
The range that you intend to merge should be empty, except for the upper-left cell. If any of the
other cells that you intend to merge are not empty, Excel displays a warning. If you continue, all
of the data (except in the upper-left cell) will be deleted.
You can use the Alignment tab of the Format Cells dialog box to merge cells, but using the
Merge & Center control in the Alignment group on the Ribbon (or on the Mini toolbar) is
simpler. To merge cells, select the cells that you want to merge and then click the Merge &
Center button. The cells will be merged, and the content in the upper-left cells will be cen-
tered horizontally. The Merge & Center button acts as a toggle. To unmerge cells, select the
merged cells and click the Merge & Center button again.
After you merge cells, you can change the alignment to something other than Center by
using the controls in the Home ➪ Alignment group.
The Home ➪ Alignment ➪ Merge & Center control contains a drop-down list with these
additional options:
Merge Across When a multirow range is selected, this command creates multiple merged
cells—one for each row.
Merge Cells Merges the selected cells without applying the Center attribute.
Unmerge Cells Unmerges the selected cells.
