Merge Cells in Excel in 5 Minutes or Less

Understanding the ins and outs of Excel is important for organizing knowledge, understanding analytics, and getting essentially the most out of your advertising and marketing efforts. The software is nice for rapidly processing huge quantities of knowledge, however it may be overwhelming when you do not spend the vast majority of your workday whipping up spreadsheets.

Luckily, a number of primary expertise are all it is advisable to put collectively an easy-to-read spreadsheet. One is figuring out methods to merge cells in Excel. Whether or not you are planning weblog articles for the upcoming quarter, creating an e-mail listing for a focused marketing campaign, or designing Search engine marketing-friendly Google advertisements, merging cells is a useful strategy to arrange your data.

To sharpen your expertise, we’ll cowl a number of methods to mix cells.

Do not wish to begin from scratch? Use these free Excel templates as a basis on your personal advertising and marketing spreadsheets.

Merge Two Cells in Excel

Merging is a strategy to flip two small cells into one new, massive cell. That is helpful for organizing data and creating headers, with out the necessity to resize particular person cells. This is methods to do it.

Step 1: Spotlight the 2 adjoining cells you wish to merge (I am merging A1 and B1 within the instance).

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Step 2: Underneath the House tab, click on the ‘Merge’ icon and select ‘Merge Cells’.

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Step 3: That is it! You’ve got merged the cells.

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Observe: When combining cells, solely the information within the higher left cell is saved. Be certain to save lots of the knowledge from the opposite cell so it isn’t misplaced. If you happen to occur to have knowledge in each A1 and B1, Excel will not merely wipe it. This alert will pop up:

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Do not wish to delete the information? Click on ‘Cancel,’ and duplicate/paste the knowledge right into a separate doc or cell earlier than merging. If you happen to solely want the knowledge within the upper-left cell, click on ‘OK’ to merge the cells.

Merge and Heart Cells in Excel

Say you are constructing a advertising and marketing report and wish your titles to be centered above your knowledge. Merge and middle cells by following these steps.

Step 1: Spotlight the cells you wish to merge.

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Step 2: Underneath the House tab, click on the ‘Merge’ icon and select ‘Merge & Heart.’

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Step 3: Your cells will merge and the information might be centered inside the cell.

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Merge Cells in Excel Shortcut

Clicking the proper ‘Merge’ perform again and again is usually a drag if it is advisable to mix a whole lot of cells. For quick merging, begin by highlighting the cells you wish to merge. Then, sort the next key mixtures.

Excel Shortcuts for Home windows

1. Merge Cells: ALT H+M+M
2. Merge & Heart: ALT H+M+C
3. Merge Throughout: ALT H+M+A
4. Unmerge Cells: ALT H+M+U

Excel Shortcuts for OS

The Apple working system would not have an ALT key, so it’s a must to arrange your personal shortcut to merge cells.

1. In Excel, click on ‘Instruments’ beneath the navigation bar.
2. Choose ‘Customise Keyboard.’
3. A pop-up will seem. Underneath the header ‘Specify a Command’ there are two columns: Classes and Instructions. For Classes, choose ‘House Tab.’ For Instructions, choose ‘Merge Cells.’
4. Choose the textual content field beneath ‘Press new keyboard shortcut.’ Sort the important thing mixture on your shortcut. For instance: CONTROL+M.
5. Click on ‘OK’ to set your shortcut.
6. Now you can use CONTROL+M to merge cells in Excel.
7. Arrange extra shortcuts for Merge Throughout, Merge & Heart, or Unmerge.

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Merge A number of Cells in Excel

You understand the fundamentals, however now you wish to get artistic and merge greater than two cells. Relying in your desired spreadsheet format, you should utilize the Merge Throughout, Merge Cells, or Merge & Heart perform.

1. Merge Throughout

This feature is used to merge cells inside a single row. You may’t use ‘Merge Throughout’ to mix cells inside a column or throughout a number of rows.

On this instance, I am establishing PPC advertisements and wish to see my description copy in row 17. If I merely resize column F, my desk may have an excessive amount of area between column F and G. Merging a number of cells throughout row 17 lets me see the copy and hold the desk neat.

Step 1: Spotlight all of the cells you wish to merge inside the row.

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Step 2: Underneath the House tab, click on the ‘Merge’ icon and select ‘Merge Throughout.’

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Step 3: The cells merge throughout your entire highlighted space.

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2. Merge & Heart

You may merge and middle a number of cells throughout rows and down columns. Simply keep in mind the information within the upper-left cell is the one data that may keep as soon as merged. Within the instance under, I exploit ‘Merge & Heart’ to mix rows 15, 16, and 17 with columns F, G, and H.

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3. Merge Cells

The ‘Merge Cells’ perform is good to mix a number of adjoining cells throughout rows and columns. It really works similar to the ‘Merge & Heart’ perform, besides the information might be left-aligned as a substitute of centered after merging.

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Merge Cells in Excel With out Shedding Information

Need to merge cells with out shedding data from all however the higher left cell? Straightforward. You should use the ampersand (&) or the CONCATENATE perform to mix knowledge from two or extra cells.

Within the instance under, I am creating copy for Instagram and wish to mix the caption with its corresponding hyperlink.

Ampersand

Step 1: Select the cell the place you wish to put the merged knowledge. Be certain that is separate from the cells you are merging.

Step 2: Sort = within the clean cell and choose the primary cell to mix.

Step 3: Sort & and use ” ” to go away an area between cell knowledge.

Step 4: Sort & once more earlier than selecting the subsequent cell. Repeat for all of the cells you wish to mix. An instance formulation is =D5&” “&E5.

Step 5: Hit Enter. Within the instance, you may see how the textual content from cells D5 and E5 merged into F5.

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CONCATENATE or CONCAT

The CONCATENATE perform (or CONCAT) is one other strategy to mix two or extra textual content strings collectively.

The formulation in Excel is =CONCATENATE (text1,text2,…). Text1 is the primary cell to merge and is usually a textual content worth, quantity, or cell reference. Text2 is the subsequent merchandise to affix. For this perform, you may merge as much as 255 gadgets or 8,192 characters.

Step 1: Spotlight a brand new clean cell the place you wish to merge the information.

Step 2: Within the formulation bar, sort =CONCATENATE(

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Step 3: A formulation builder will pop up, permitting you to decide on Text1, Text2, and so forth. Choose the cells you wish to merge, so as from first to final. To incorporate areas between the cell knowledge, you have to embrace ,” “, inside the formulation. [i.e. =CONCATENATE(D5,” “,E5)]

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Step 4: Hit Enter. The information out of your chosen cells might be mixed within the CONCATENATE cell.

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Why Cannot I Merge Cells in Excel?

So much can go improper in case your formulation or formatting is not arrange accurately. If you happen to’re struggling to merge cells, strive these troubleshooting suggestions.

1. Make sure you’re not actively modifying a cell you wish to merge. The ‘Merge’ icon might be shaded out when you’re in the course of making modifications. To repair this, merely hit ‘Enter’ to cease modifying or click on onto one other cell earlier than clicking again to the cell you’d prefer to merge.

1. Verify if one of many cells is a part of an Excel desk. Tables have a singular format that do not permit merging. You may let you know’re on a Desk if the ‘Chart Design’ or ‘Format’ tabs throughout the highest of your workbook are highlighted in inexperienced and the ‘Merge’ icon is shaded out.

1. Have a look at the sharing permissions of the Excel workbook. If it isn’t shared with you or is protected, you will not have the ability to make any modifications or merge cells.

Unmerge Cells

Possibly you bought a bit excited attempting out your new expertise and merged one cell too many. Do not panic. Merely unmerge your cells by following these steps.

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1. Spotlight the cells you wish to unmerge.
2. Underneath the House tab, click on the ‘Merge’ icon and select ‘Unmerge Cells.’
3. Your cells will return to the unique formatting, however you should have misplaced the knowledge from earlier than the merge.
4. If you happen to want that data, click on ‘Command’ + Z (OS) or ‘CTRL’ +Z (Home windows) to undo your actions till you see the information pop up.

Excel Shortcuts Make Life Simpler

Whereas utilizing spreadsheets can really feel intimidating at first, with the information and shortcuts above, you will have it down very quickly. 

Editor’s notice: This text was initially revealed in Could 2021 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.