You receive an error message when you use the Paste Special command in Excel
Article ID: 176838
Article Last Modified on 1/22/2007
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Office Excel 2003
- Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Excel 2001 for Mac
- Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Excel 98 for Macintosh
- Microsoft Excel X for Mac
This article was previously published under Q176838
SYMPTOMS
When you try to use the Paste Special command in the
versions of Microsoft Excel that are listed in the "Applies to" section, you may receive the following error message:
This operation requires the merged cells to be identically sized.
CAUSE
This problem may occur if both of the following conditions
are true:
- You copy data from a range of cells that contains merged
cells.
- You try to paste the values only (on the Edit
menu, click Paste Special, and then click
Values) on the same sheet that you copied the values
from.
WORKAROUND
To copy the contents of merged cells and paste their values,
you must first unmerge the cells. To work around this problem, follow these
steps:
- Select the merged cells that are in the range that you want
to copy.
- On the Format menu, click
Cells, and then click the Alignment tab.
- Click to clear the Merge cells check box,
and then click OK.
Note the range of cells that you
selected.
- Select the entire range the you want to copy.
- On the Edit menu, click
Copy.
- Select the range of cells where you want to paste the
values.
- On the Edit menu, click Paste
Special.
Click Values, and then click
OK.
- Select the cells that you noted in step 3.
- On the Format menu, click
Cells, and then click the Alignment tab.
- Click the Merge cells check box, and then
click OK.
Additional query words: XL97 XL xl2000 xl2002 xl2003 xlx xl2001
Keywords: kbformat kberrmsg kbprb KB176838