Excel offers extensive functionality for its users. But to enjoy all these benefits, you need to study all the available functions of this Microsoft app. In this article, we are going to show you how to combine cells in Excel.
We suggest you to study several ways on how to combine two cells in Excel to choose the one that is convenient for you. We will also share the secret of how to combine cells so that the values inside them are saved.
The 1st way to merge cells in Excel
We will do this through the main menu of the app. To perform this function, follow the instructions below.
Step 1. Select the cells you want to merge
Step 2. Select the “Main menu”
Step 3. Find the “Merge Cells” icon
When you click on this icon, the two cells will turn into a single one.
Moreover, if one of the cells contained values, they will be saved in the new cell. And the information will be aligned to the center of the cell.
“Merge Cell” Options
The “Merge Cell” icon offers us even more functionality for working with cells.
To see all available options, click on the small down arrow next to the icon:
Then you will see a window with the following options:
The first option “Merge and Center” is what happens automatically when clicking on the icon. The cells are merged into a single one, and the information is displayed in the center of the new cell.
The second option “Merge Across” provide with combining by lines; it allows us to select a large range of cells, within which the cells are merged by lines. For example,
Step 1. We’ll highlight the following cells:
Step 2. Choose the “Merge Across” option to combine the cells by lines:
Step 3. Our cells are transformed like this:
The third option “Merge Cells” will make the values inside the cell right-aligned.
And the fourth option “Unmerge Cells” provides canceling the merge function. If you accidentally merged the wrong cells, you can use this function.
The 2nd way to combine cells in Excel
The next way on how to combine cells in Excel can be done through the right-click context menu of the mouse.
Step 1. Select the desired range of cells
Step 2. Select the desired range of cells. Such a window will appear
Step 3. Find the “Format Cells…” line
Step 4. Go to the “Alignment” tab in this menu
Step 5. Check the box next to “Merge Cells”
Step 6. Click on “OK”
Thus, the cells you selected turned into a single one.
The described methods of how to combine two cells in Excel are suitable if only one of the two selected cells or none of the cells contained values.
If you start combining several cells, each of which contains some information, the Microsoft app will give you a warning:
If you are willing to donate your values, you can confirm merging. In such a way, merging cells only keeps the upper-left value and discards other values.
If you want to save values from all the cells, you can follow these options:
- Overwrite values from all the cells into one manually
- Copy and paste the values via keyboard shortcuts or a context menu
In any case, the program does not yet offer us an option on how to combine two cells in Excel by simultaneously combining all the information in them at once.
We told you about the easiest and fastest ways of how to combine cells in Excel in this article. Choose the option that is convenient for you and use it as needed.
Now, the multifaceted functionality of the Excel app will not be so mysterious and incomprehensible to you.
