Joining cells which are also referred to as merging is a practice where two or more cells are combined to form one large cell. In default, Excel cells are small-sized, thus they limit the length of words in each cell. However, this can be avoided by merging two or more cells.
Many ways can be used to joins cells together. Below are some of these commonly used methods;
Joining Cells across
When working with Excel, you may wish to join several across cells together. This may be possible if the following steps are applied;
1. To join cells together you've to highlight the cells to be merged. Therefore, select the cells to be merged across.
2. Then click on the "Home Tab."
3. On the Home tab, locate the "Alignment section." On the merge &Center, there's a drop-down menu, click on it.
4. A drop-down menu is displayed on clicking. Select the "Merge Across" button.
5. The selected cells will be merged across.
Merge& center
Excel also allows its user to merge and center selected cells. These steps are followed when doing so;
1. Highlight the cells to be merged across.
2. Then click on the "Home Tab."
3. On the Home tab, locate the "Alignment section." In default, the drop-down menu is set to "Merge & Center." If this is the case, click on it to join the selected cells.
4. If otherwise, click on the drop-down menu and select "Merge & Center."
Joining multiple cells together
1. Highlight the cells to be merged across.
2. Then click on the "Home Tab."
3. On the Home tab, locate the "Alignment section." On the merge &Center, there's a drop-down menu, click on it.
4. Then, select the "Merge cells" option.
An alternative way to join cells
Other ways can be used to combine cells in Excel. Below are the steps of another method that can be used:
1. Highlight the cells to be merged across.
2. Then, right-click to open the side-view menu. On this menu, click on the "Format cells" button.
3. Then, click on the "Alignment" tab at the top of the pop-up box.
4. On the Alignment screen, locate the "Merge cells" section and tick the box next to it.
6. Hit the "Ok" button and your cells will be merged.
Also, you can join cells using Functions. Excel has several inbuilt functions. Some of these functions may be beneficial when joining two or more cells. Ampersand (&) or the CONCATENATE function are commonly used.
How to use these functions:
1. Open your worksheet.
2. On a blank cell, enter any of the functions together with the address of the cells to be merged.
For example using Ampersand, =D3& "E3
For example using Concatenation, =CONCATENATE (
Joining Shortcuts for windows
Firstly, highlight the cells to be joined then to Merge Cells use ALT H+M+M, to Merge & Center use ALT H+M+C, and to Merge Across use ALT H+M+A.