Why You Should Stop Using Merge & Center in Excel

There’s bound to have been a time when you’ve entered text into a cell, only to find it doesn’t all fit.

Widening the cell column would make sense, however, you may not want to if it interferes with something else.

In this situation, typically you’d use Merge & Center, which is found in the Home tab.

This works – kind of.

Your chosen cells merge, the text aligns centrally, and everything looks great. It’s only after you’ve selected ranges, copied, pasted and sorted data enough times to know that perhaps Merge & Center isn’t your best friend after all.

Thankfully, there is an alternative. Center Across Selection offers the good of Merge & Center—without the bad.

Simply select a horizontal cell range, open the Alignment Settings window from the Home tab (or press Ctrl + 1) and choose Center Across Selection from the first dropdown. Finally, press OK.

Your text is now centred across multiple cells, but you can select them like any other!

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to centre text in a vertical range, so you’re resigned to using merged cells or a text box.

For the latter, go to Insert > Text Box, and then hold down the Alt key whilst resizing to snap it to cells on the grid. Enter some text, highlight it and press the Middle Align and Center buttons in the Home tab.

Watch the Video

Here’s a quick video demonstrating the differences between Merge & Center and Center Across Selection.