KB191892 - XL98: Pasting in Merged Cell Duplicates Copied Cells

Article ID: 191892

Article Last Modified on 9/11/2002

Microsoft Excel 98 for Macintosh

This article was previously published under Q191892

SYMPTOMS

When you copy and then paste cells in a merged cell, Microsoft Excel may remove the merge cell formatting (unmerges the cell) and duplicate the contents of the copied cells in the unmerged cells.

CAUSE

This behavior may occur when the following conditions are true:

You select a range of cells and click Merge And Center on the Formatting toolbar. -and-
You select other (unmerged) cells that contain data and click Copy on the Edit menu. -and-
You click the merged cell and click Paste on the Edit menu.

STATUS

This behavior is by design in Microsoft Excel 98.

MORE INFORMATION

You can create a merged cell by combining two or more selected cells. Microsoft Excel places the data in the upper-leftmost cell of the selection in the resulting merged cell. The upper-left cell contains the value or formula for the merged cells.

In order to copy data into a merged cell, the copied range must have the same number of columns or rows as the range of cells that you merged, or the copied range must be a single cell. For example, if you merge cells A1:B3, you cannot copy cells C1 and C2 in the merged cell because the number of rows in the copied range do not equal the number of rows in the cells you merged. However, you can copy cells C1 and D1 in the merged cell. Microsoft Excel duplicates the contents of the copied cells in the cells that comprised the previously merged cell.

When you copy multiple cells and paste them in a single merged cell, the formatting in the destination cell (merged cell) is replaced by the formatting of the copied cell. The information that you copy from the source cell is duplicated in the cells in the destination cells (the previously merged cell). For example, if you copy two cells and paste them in a cell that you merged from four cells, the contents appear twice to fill the number of cells in the destination range.

For additional information about merging cells, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

181566 XL98: Formats May Not Be Applied to Pasted Merged Cell

181708 XL98: "That Command Cannot Be Used" Inserting Columns or Rows

REFERENCES

For more information about merged cells, click Contents And Index on the Help menu (or on the Balloon Help menu if you are using a version of the Macintosh operating system earlier than 8.0), click the Index button in Excel Help, type the following text

merging cells

and then click Show Topics. Select the "Merge cells to span several columns or rows" topic, and click Go To. If you are unable to find the information you need, ask the Office Assistant.

Additional query words: XL98

Keywords: kbualink97 kbprb KB191892