How to Merge Cells in Excel: Unmerge, Shortcuts, and Combining Text
How to merge and unmerge cells, plus how to center text without merging and how to join text with a formula.
2026-11-10
Key points
- 1To merge: Home → Merge & Center
- 2Don't merge inside data you will sort
- 3To center visually only, use Center Across Selection
How to merge cells
- 1
Drag to select the cells to merge
- 2
Click Merge & Center on the Home tab
Note
If several cells contain values, only the upper-left value is kept and the others are deleted.
Three ways to merge
Choose them from the ▼ next to Merge & Center.
| Type: | What it does |
|---|---|
| Merge & Center | Merges into one cell and centers the text |
| Merge Across | Merges each row separately; use it to merge several rows at once |
| Merge Cells | Merges into one cell without changing the alignment |
Shortcuts
There's no dedicated merge shortcut. On Windows, press Alt and then the keys in order to use the ribbon.
| Action | Keys (Windows) |
|---|---|
| Merge & Center | Alt → H → M → C |
| Merge Across | Alt → H → M → A |
| Merge Cells | Alt → H → M → M |
| Unmerge Cells | Alt → H → M → U |
To merge another area, select it and press F4 to repeat the last action.
Unmerge cells
Select the merged cell and click Merge & Center again to unmerge. To unmerge the whole sheet, click the corner at the top left to select everything first.
After unmerging, the value stays only in the upper-left cell. Here's how to fill the cells below with the same value.
- 1
Select the unmerged range
- 2
Ctrl + G → Special → Blanks → OK
- 3
Type
=and press ↑This creates a formula that points to the cell above. - 4
Press Ctrl + Enter to confirm
The formula fills every selected blank cell.
When not to merge
Merging is for looks. Inside data you will analyze later, it causes these problems:
- Sorting stops with "To do this, all the merged cells need to be the same size"
- Filters show only the first row of a merged range
- PivotTables and functions treat the rows after the first as blank
- Selecting a column also selects merged neighbors
| Department | Name |
| Sales | Smith |
| Johnson | |
| Admin | Williams |
| Department | Name |
| Sales | Smith |
| Sales | Johnson |
| Admin | Williams |
Merging is fine for parts that aren't data, such as a report cover or title.
Center without merging
To center a title across several columns, use Center Across Selection. It looks like a merge, but the cells stay separate.
- 1
Select the range to center across
Put the title in the leftmost cell of the range. - 2
Open Format Cells with Ctrl + 1 (⌘ + 1 on a Mac)
- 3
On the Alignment tab, set Horizontal to Center Across Selection
Note
It works horizontally only. There's no vertical equivalent.
Join text from cells
To combine text while keeping the cells separate, use a formula.
| Goal | Formula | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Join two cells | =A2&B2 | JohnSmith |
| Add a space between | =A2&" "&B2 | John Smith |
| Join a range with a delimiter | =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:C2) | New York, Chicago, Seattle |
TEXTJOIN is available in Excel 2019 and later. To build a whole column from one example, Flash Fill (Ctrl + E) also works.
FAQ
QHow can I find merged cells?
Ctrl + F → Options → Format → Alignment tab, check Merge cells, and click Find All to list them.
QThe merge button is grayed out.
You may be editing a cell, inside a table, or on a protected sheet. Press Enter to finish editing, then check the range.
QCan I keep both values when merging?
Not with merge. First join them in a new column with a formula above, paste as values, and then merge.
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