# Excel Merged Cells



## ibm37 (Feb 28, 2003)

Is there a quick way of finding which cells in a big spreadsheet have "merged cells" ( like Go To Special??)
Thanks


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## ibm37 (Feb 28, 2003)

Basically .. I seem to be getting the error message"The Operation requires the merged cells to be identically sized" with a lot of things Iam trying to do, ie Sorting??


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## Wyza (Jan 12, 2003)

I had the same problem a while ago and asked the identical question in several forums. I got that message everytime I tried to sort the data or paste a block of data or whatever. No one had any answers, though. 

Here's what I did though and it solved the problem for me. 

- selected the whole worksheet (Ctrl+A)
- clicked the Unmerge cells icon.

That's it. 

I couldn't see any change in the cells and nothing was deleted so it worked for me. If it changes your sheet you can always just undo it but it's what worked for me. 

Good luck.
-Wyza


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## ibm37 (Feb 28, 2003)

yeah, cool.. I tried that as well !! didn't see any changes...and all seemed to work...! Its just that I was sure something changed?? not my spreadsheets you see..Fuuny Old thing is excel!


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## Empire895 (Aug 4, 2003)

Hi, I have been having the same problem that you speak of here.....

the error when I try to sort says.....


This operation requires the merged cells to be identically sized

I'd like to try your advise of highlighting everything and hitting the unmerge button but I cannot find the button for this function.

Can anyone help me, maybe I am going blind but I can;t seem to find it. I use Excel 2000. Thanks


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## Ca1Ga1 (Jul 30, 2003)

If you have different row heights it will give that error message as well. Sometimes this does, sometimes this doesn't work: paste special and choose whatever you would like to paste. Otherwise... try a row or column paste and see where the problem lies.


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## Empire895 (Aug 4, 2003)

I selected all cells and made sure everyone had the same height and it still will not sort.

I do not follow you in regards to doing a paste special. I copied one of my rows and then did a paste special with no problem.

I am confused. But thanks for trying to help. It is appreciated. I'm just a bit stressed right now that this won;t sort for no good reason but some stupid programming flaw. (in my eyes)

Or of course it could be me... LOL


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## WendyM (Jun 28, 2003)

If you still need to find the "unmerge cells" button you can go to View/Toolbars/Customize and then search for it on the "Commands" tab under the "Format" category. Once you find it, you can drag that button up to your toolbar. Hope this helps.


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## khaki (Jul 26, 2003)

just as an FYI....

merged cells turn Excel from a true spreadsheet (rows and columns)...
into a report (row and column integrity altered for visual appearance).

to get around your problem:

you can have a non-formatted version (worksheet) which you can link to a formatted version.

this way.... any sorting that you need to do... can be done in the non-formatted version (and the formatted version will just grab the changed values from there).

it's not an ideal solution (linked cells can slow performance).... but it will work 

and just so you know: 
it's not really a "programming flaw".... any time that you change Excel's natural environment as a spreadsheet... it just protects you from messing-up whatever it cannot interpret intuitively (and with all of the possible ways of formatting Excel.... it would be impossible for it to calculate every possible scenario).

hope that makes sense.
 k


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## Empire895 (Aug 4, 2003)

Thank you to everyone for the help!

And thank you Wendy for guiding me in the right direction. 

Also khaki, you are absolutely rght, the only programming flaw is in my own head for not just reading the manual. haha.

Thanks again everyone!


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## timmeke_nr2 (Jul 25, 2003)

empire895:
when everything is selected, rightclick, choose cell format, alignment, de-click the "merge cells" checkbox.
(I hope my english is well enough 2 understand it, I'm thinking in french now  )


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