Chapter 6: Worksheet Formatting
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FIGURE 6.7Merge 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 17,179,869,184 cells in a worksheet into a single cell — although I can’t think of any
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
the data (except in the upper-left cell) will be deleted. To avoid deleting data, click Cancel in
response to the warning.You can use the Alignment tab of the Format Cells dialog box to merge cells, but using the Merge
& Center control 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 centered 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.The Home ➪ Alignment ➪ Merge & Center control contains a drop-down list with these additional
options:l (^) Merge Across: When a multirow range is selected, this command creates multiple merged
cells — one for each row.
l (^) Merge Cells: Merges the selected cells without applying the Center attribute.
l Unmerge Cells: Unmerges the selected cells.
Displaying text at an angle.......................................................................................
In some cases, you may want to create more visual impact by displaying text at an angle within a
cell. You can display text horizontally, vertically, or at an angle between 90 degrees up and 90
degrees down.