keyboard shortcut to merge cells?

[jan001]

Is there a keyboard shortcut to merge two contiguous cells? I've inherited something that has tiny column after tiny column of split cells, and the boss wants the cells merged into single cells within each column.

Rebuilding the whole thing isn't an attractive option because of some other stuff not related to this issue.

I'm just trying to find a way to highlight the cells and merge them, all on the keyboard, instead of back and forth from keyboard to mouse over and over and over and over. I've looked in the onboard help but found nothing on this.

Thanks!

 

[schielrn]

Excel does not have a keyboard shortcut for merging cells.

A quick search on google provided me with this link that might be useful for you.

http://exceltips.vitalnews.com/Pages/T1228_Shortcut_to_Merge_Cells.html

Then you can set the macro to a short cut key.

 

[Smitty]

You can just add a shortut to this:

Selection.MergeCells = True

Although if you give more detail as to the range(s) to be merged someone may be able to whip up a code solution.

HTH,

Smitty

 

[jan001]

I have a boilerplate calendar, created in Excel, that the boss wants me to tweak to meet some specific needs. It was created somewhere else. One thing in it is that each date box has five rows for data and each row is split into two cells. I have to make each row one single cell.

I've had intermittent luck using the ctrl key to highlight a group of two-cell rows and then clicking the Merge button on the toolbar to convert them to single-cell rows in "bulk". Sometimes that works and other times it just sits there and stares blankly at me. I've been using computers long enough to know there's probably something I'm doing wrong or different those times when it doesn't work, but I can't figure out what.

But I digress.

So that's what I'm trying to do, which is why it would be lot easier if there were a keyboard method, instead of back and forth to the mouse (trackball in my case). Ah, it's times like this when I long for the days of command line interface...

(PS: Congratulations, Smitty, on the MVP!)

 

[Smitty]

This may seem like a silly question, but why not select all, then unmerge?

Otherwise you can use SHIFT+Arrow to select the offending cells then add a keyboard shortcut to the above...

Smitty

(Thanks! )

 

[PA HS Teacher]

You may find the F4 key useful.

If you peform some any type of formatting, (including merging cells), then select another cell or cells, pressing F4 will apply the same formatting change to those cells.

Not knowing the layout of your sheet, I would, Peform a Merge on one block of cells.

Then I'd select the next block of cells. (using the arrow key and shift key to avoid the track ball as Smitty has suggested)

Then I'd press F4,

Move to the next blok of cells, press F4 and repeat.

If this was many thousands of cells, that follow a regular pattern, I'd write a little code.

The F4 key is great for this kind of stuff.

 

[jan001]

Smitty, the do-a-bunch-at-once technique is the one I was talking about when I said it works sometimes and other times not. I'm sure it has to be a user error, but what, I don't know since it seems pretty capricious.

Teacher, I tried the F4 thing but it wonked up to calendar formatting, which I think probably has to do with some setting that was inherited with the calendar before I ever got it.

I tried just copying and inserting a merged 1-from-2 cell 12 times in a square, but that too chingered the formatting, and I spent more time putting that back right than I would have doing the merge line by line.

I think I may see how long my luck will hold trying it again with the do-a-bunch-at-once technique again.

 

[cengstrom01]

Yeah, this is the perfect solution. just perform the action once and then (F4) becomes your quick key!!

 

[MrKowz]

Holy necrothread, Batman! Amazing how solutions from 10 years ago are still relative. I love how Excel is ever evolving, but at the same time never changing.