Advertisement When you want to combine two cells into one in Excel, you have a few options. Merging cells is one of the best ways to do it. But it has a few drawbacks, too. Even so, you might find that it’s useful for. We’ll take a look at how to merge cells in Excel, how to unmerge them, and another method for combining two cells into one without losing the data in the cells. How to Merge Cells in Excel Before we get into how to merge cells, let’s talk about exactly what happens when you merge in Excel. In this example, we’ll look at two columns, one for first name and one for last name: When we merge two of these cells, we end up with the contents of those cells in a single cell, like this.

Take a look at this instructional video and learn how to combine the contents of multiple cells into one cell in Microsoft Excel 2007. This software offers two formulas to perform this combination. Use Excel's merge feature to extend a single cell across multiple columns or rows. Combine the content from adjactent cells. So when you merge a series of cells, make sure that all but the.

The two cells have been combined, leaving a single cell that’s twice as wide and only contains one value. Excel only keeps the upper-left value of any merged cells. That’s one drawback to merging in Excel. We’ll talk about how to get around that in a moment.

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To merge cells in Excel, select the cells you want to merge. You can select any number of cells; in our example, we’ll select just two. Once you’ve selected the cells, head to the Home tab and click Merge & Center in the Alignment section: If you’ve selected more than one with text in it, you’ll get a warning. After clicking Merge Across, you’ll receive another warning from Excel. But instead of a single warning, you’ll get one warning for each row in your selection.

Which is a lot. After clicking OK for each row, you’ll have a newly combined column: You might be wondering why you wouldn’t just delete the second column in this case. Well, you probably would. Merging columns doesn’t do a whole lot for you. Let’s talk about a better way to merge cells in Excel. Combining Cells With CONCATENATE The fact that combining cells makes you lose data is a big disadvantage of using Excel’s merging function. However, you can get around that by using a formula.

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Here’s the syntax of the CONCATENATE function, one of: =CONCATENATE(text 1, [text 2].) The function takes multiple text inputs and creates a new cell that combines all of them. This lets you merge cells without losing any data. Let’s use the same spreadsheet as before, with the list of first and last names. Instead of merging the cells and losing the last names, we’ll create a new column and use CONCATENATE to bring in both the first and last names. Here’s the formula we’ll use in the new columns: =CONCATENATE(B2, ' ', C2) Notice that between B2 and C2 we have a space between two quotes. This is important because it inserts a space between the contents of the cells being merged. If you forget it, you’ll get the first and last names mashed together.

Here’s what it looks like in Excel: When I hit Enter, here’s what we get: Much better than our first attempt, isn’t it? You also have the advantage of being able to modify the combination later, whereas you cannot do that when you merge cells the regular way. How to Unmerge Cells in Excel If you decide to merge cells, you’ll also want to know how to unmerge or split them. Unfortunately, unmerging doesn’t bring any of your lost data back. When you merge cells in Excel, you’re going to lose some information, and it’s gone forever. Merged cells can create weird spaces in your spreadsheet, though, and unmerging them solves the problem.

To split cells in Excel, just select the merged cell, click the dropdown arrow next to Merge & Center, and click on Unmerge Cells: The cells will go back to their original count and size. You’ll still only have the data from the upper-left corner of your selection, though. This is one reason why it’s a good idea to work on a copy of your spreadsheet (or use the CONCATENATE function). Merging Cells Can Still Be Useful While you’ll need to use CONCATENATE to merge cells without losing data, there are still some uses of merging in Excel. It’s often used for formatting to clean up a table, for example, which may help you: In general, though, it’s better to use CONCATENATE if you’re looking to merge cells without losing data. That being said, you may find that you come across a situation where you need to merge cells in Excel.