Merging cells looks clean but causes real problems. Here's how to do it properly — and the smarter alternative.
Select the cells you want to merge → Home → Merge & Center. Or use the dropdown next to Merge & Center for more options:
Merged cells break: sorting (you can't sort a range containing merged cells), filtering, VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP, pivot tables, copying and pasting, and selecting entire columns. Use them only for visual headers in print-ready reports, never in data tables.
This looks exactly like Merge & Center but doesn't actually merge the cells, so nothing breaks.
The text appears centred across the cells, but the cells aren't merged. Sorting, filtering, and lookups all still work.
Merging is fine for titles and headers in print-ready formatted reports where you'll never sort, filter, or use lookups on the data. The problem is when people merge cells in actual data tables thinking it looks tidier.
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