

You can only merge contiguous cells that form a rectangular shape. What is a Merged CellĪ merged cell in Excel combines two or more cells into one large cell. I’ll also tell you why you shouldn’t use them and a better alternative that will produce the same visual result. In this post, I’ll show you everything you need to know about merged cells including 8 ways to merge cells. In most cases Center Across Selection is a better approach than Merge because it leaves the primary structure of your worksheet intact and avoids certain problems that can occur when cells have been merged.Merged cells are one of the most popular options used by beginner spreadsheet users.īut they have a lot of drawbacks that make them a not so great option. The results look the same as merging, but all cells are intact. Now let's apply the Merge and Center approach to our main table. If we check the Format Cells dialog box, we'll see that Merge is left unchecked. The result looks the same as a merge, but all the cells are still in place. If the original selection has text in cells to the right, you'll need to manually remove that text before Center Across Selection takes effect.įor the next two rows, let's remove the text in columns N and O first, and then apply Center Across Selection. To access Center Across Selection, you need to go to the Alignment tab in the Format Cells dialog box.įrom the Horizontal menu, select Center Across Selection and click OK. Like merging, the first step is to select the cells across which you'd like to center text.

In contrast, Center Across Selection only centers text it does not combine cells. Other text, if it exists, is destroyed during the merge. Only the value in the upper left cell is maintained. Recall that Merge & Center physically merges cells and centers the remaining text. Here we have the same table we looked at in an earlier lesson on aligning text across cells using Merge.

Unlike merging, Center Across Selection leaves all cells in place but still centers text across columns. In this lesson, we'll look at another approach to centering text across more than one column.
