I've searched the site and have found very few threads on this topic,
and the suggestion of dragging the buttons doesn't work. I need a
keyboard shortcut for merging cells. I don't know much about macros,
but if someone has a macro that will merge cells (and align left) -
I'd greatly appreciate it.

To give you a better idea of how to help, this is what I'm doing. I
have copied a schedule from project and pasted in excel with the
outline level column, so I could easily indent the sub-tasks. I
indented (by following some suggestions in the project group) by
inserting a couple columns and moving over the sub-tasks to their
corresponding columns. Now I want to merge the cells that the higher
level tasks' text are in, as well as the blank cells in front of the
lower level tasks. A keyboard shortcut for merge, or a macro that
will do this for me, would greatly help.

Any suggestions??

Hi
try the following:
- start recording a macro ('tools - Macro '- Record)' and assign a
shortcut for this recorded macro
- do this operation manually
- stop the recording and use this recorded macro

--
Regards
Frank Kabel
Frankfurt, Germany


terrapinie wrote:
> I've searched the site and have found very few threads on this topic,
> and the suggestion of dragging the buttons doesn't work. I need a
> keyboard shortcut for merging cells. I don't know much about macros,
> but if someone has a macro that will merge cells (and align left) -
> I'd greatly appreciate it.
>
> To give you a better idea of how to help, this is what I'm doing. I
> have copied a schedule from project and pasted in excel with the
> outline level column, so I could easily indent the sub-tasks. I
> indented (by following some suggestions in the project group) by
> inserting a couple columns and moving over the sub-tasks to their
> corresponding columns. Now I want to merge the cells that the higher
> level tasks' text are in, as well as the blank cells in front of the
> lower level tasks. A keyboard shortcut for merge, or a macro that
> will do this for me, would greatly help.
>
> Any suggestions??

You can merge one group of cells, then use the F4 key to repeat that
action on other cells --

Select the first group of cells that you want to merge
Choose Format>Cells
On the Alignment tab, add a check mark to 'Merge cells'
Set any other alignment options, e.g. Horizontal: Left
Click OK

Select the next group of cells that you want to merge
Press the F4 key on the keyboard
Continue to use the F4 key to merge the remaining cells.

terrapinie wrote:
> I've searched the site and have found very few threads on this topic,
> and the suggestion of dragging the buttons doesn't work. I need a
> keyboard shortcut for merging cells. I don't know much about macros,
> but if someone has a macro that will merge cells (and align left) -
> I'd greatly appreciate it.
>
> To give you a better idea of how to help, this is what I'm doing. I
> have copied a schedule from project and pasted in excel with the
> outline level column, so I could easily indent the sub-tasks. I
> indented (by following some suggestions in the project group) by
> inserting a couple columns and moving over the sub-tasks to their
> corresponding columns. Now I want to merge the cells that the higher
> level tasks' text are in, as well as the blank cells in front of the
> lower level tasks. A keyboard shortcut for merge, or a macro that
> will do this for me, would greatly help.
>
> Any suggestions??


--
Debra Dalgleish
Excel FAQ, Tips & Book List
http://www.contextures.com/tiptech.html

Select 2 cells, do tools>macro>record new macro, give it a name, assign a
short cut key combination,
put it in the Personal Macro Workbook, click OK, do
format>cells>alignment>merge cells,
and in the horizontal dropdown select left (indent), click OK, Stop the
macro recording.
Done..
Having said that I strongly recommend against using merged cells, down the
road you are bound to have problems
with it. You can basically get the same layout with some work around. I have
yet to meet someone who knows
a bit about Excel who uses it
--

Regards,

Peo Sjoblom


"terrapinie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> I've searched the site and have found very few threads on this topic,
> and the suggestion of dragging the buttons doesn't work. I need a
> keyboard shortcut for merging cells. I don't know much about macros,
> but if someone has a macro that will merge cells (and align left) -
> I'd greatly appreciate it.
>
> To give you a better idea of how to help, this is what I'm doing. I
> have copied a schedule from project and pasted in excel with the
> outline level column, so I could easily indent the sub-tasks. I
> indented (by following some suggestions in the project group) by
> inserting a couple columns and moving over the sub-tasks to their
> corresponding columns. Now I want to merge the cells that the higher
> level tasks' text are in, as well as the blank cells in front of the
> lower level tasks. A keyboard shortcut for merge, or a macro that
> will do this for me, would greatly help.
>
> Any suggestions??

Hi "terrapinie" <(E-Mail Removed)>,
If you create a macro you can assign a shortcut key.

There are toolbar buttons (merge.htm#builtin) for merging,
and I have some macros for merging/unmerging cells as well.

Merge and Unmerge Cells
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/merge.htm

Don't use overlapping selection areas with macros
or with toolbar buttons.

Formatting icons
(manually: Format, cells, alignment, horizontal and merge options)
-- Merge and Center -- customize, commands, format
-- Merge Across -- customize, commands, format
-- Merge Cells -- customize, commands, format
-- Unmerge Cells -- customize, commands, format

Merging of cells interfers with sorting, filtering, copying,
and pasting along with interferring with autofit of
row height and column widths (see related area on
my merge.htm page).

Format, cells, alignment (tab),
horizontal: Center Across Selection
can be done for a block of cells and will be applied
row by row. This does not interfere with sorting,
but the toolbar button for for "Center Across Selection"
was dropped in Excel 2000. (button looked like merge and center)

Merge and Center merges all cells in a block into one
entity (not row by row) and interfers with sorting etc.
not a all like "Center Across Selection".

There are no builtin shortcut keys for merge/unmerge
Shortcut Keys in Excel 2000 (Excel Vers. 9)
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/shortx2k.htm

We are a friendly bunch here, in the Excel newsgroups, and it's a lot more
friendly and professional to use your first and last name when posting, so
we know who we are talking to.
---
HTH, I also have a toolbars.htm page mainly for customized toolbars.
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

"terrapinie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote ...
> I've searched the site and have found very few threads on this topic,
> and the suggestion of dragging the buttons doesn't work. I need a
> keyboard shortcut for merging cells. I don't know much about macros,
> but if someone has a macro that will merge cells (and align left) -
> I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for all the great advice!!! I'll try a couple different things
and see which works the best. I've had quite a few things with excel
and project, and even just general computer questions to make life
easier, and I always turn to the google groups, you guys are all
really, really helpful (and save me from some insanity at times!!)
As far as not merging for later formatting goes, I have to convert
project into excel just for some people on our project team to be able
to read the schedule, as they do not have project on their computers.
So it just needs to be the list of tasks formatted so it's easier to
read. The only columns that will be merged are those containing task
names, so the file can still be sorted by date, by % complete, by
contact, etc. But thanks again for the help and recommendations.

Laurie Youngs