Merged Cells in Microsoft Excel

Merging cells in Microsoft Excel can cause problems. If you're developing a serious spreadsheet, don't use this feature.

When you merge cells, you risk:

• Losing the ability to properly sort data
• Losing the ability to run VBA programming code on your data because it doesn't handle merged cells very well, and a significantly larger amount of code may need to be written to cover the merged cells
• Losing the ability to easily copy from and paste elsewhere, or paste to your worksheet.

If you absolutely must merge cells, use Center Across Selection instead, available under the cell formatting dialog.