XL98: Select Method May Select More Cells Than You Expect

   ActiveSheet.Range("A1:A10").Select
				

WORKAROUND

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods.

Method 1

Apply the property or method to specific a Range object rather than a Selection object if the selection contains merged cells that span cells outside of that specified range.

For example, the following macro selects cells A1:A10 and applies a bold font format to the selection:

   Sub FormatCells()

      ActiveSheet.Range("A1:A10").Select
      Selection.Font.Bold = True

   End Sub
				

If cells A2:C2 are merged, this macro applies a bold font format to the cells A1:C10. If you want to limit the bold font format to cells A1:A10, use the following macro instead. The following example applies a bold font format to the specific Range object:

  Sub FormatCells()

       ActiveSheet.Range("A1:A10").Font.Bold = True

   End Sub
				

Method 2

When you use this method, you check whether merged cells exist in the range prior to performing an action. The following macro determines if there are any merged cells in the range A1:A10 prior to formatting the cells:

    Sub FormatCells()

       ActiveSheet.Range("A1:A10").Select

       'Apply Bold to the selection if it does not contain merged cells.
       If Not(Selection.MergeCells = True) Then
           Selection.Font.Bold = True
       End If

   End Sub