Getting Oriented in Excel 2010 part 5

The difference here is that Wrap text doesn’t try to flatten the right text margin, but rather lets text advance unevenly against cell’s right boundary (Figure 4–60):

Wrap text allows text to wrap naturally to the next line, and doesn’t try the spacing heroics of Justify or Distribute; this  command is represented by the Wrap Text button in the Alignment Group.

Those options—Wrap text, Justify, and Distribute—that realign text by raising row heights instead of stretching column widths  do serve a real purpose. They’re usefully applied to worksheets in which you want to present data in a series of  columns and maintain the same width for all of them, even as the data in the columns exhibit various widths.

Shrink to fit is a curious flip side to the workings of Wrap text and column Auto Fit. Whereas Wrap text tries to pile text into a cell without changing its width by raising its row height instead, and Auto Fit tries to widen columns to accommodate all text in  one cell, Shrink to fit changes neither column width nor row height; it shrinks text in order to gather it all into existing width  and height. So if you start with this (Figure 4–61):

Shrink to Fit will recast the text to look like this (Figure 4–62):

Well, you get the idea. Finally, the Merge cells option does as it says. It actually consolidates, or merges, selected contiguous  cells into one mega cell. Thus if I start with this entry in cell J12 (Figure 4–63):

And I then select cells J12 through N12 and click the Merge cells command, I get (Figure 4–64):

And what you’re looking at now is all J12; all the selected cells have been absorbed by one cell— J12—in which I typed my  data. All of which raises a fairly obvious question: what does that do for me? Answer: not much.

But what you really may want to do is merge these cells as we’ve demonstrated above, and then center the data in the new,  super-sized cell. And indeed, there’s an Alignment Group button—Merge & Center—which does exactly that (Figure 4–65):

By default, clicking Merge & Center on our selection of J12 through N12 brings about (Figure 4– 66):

This option resolves an old spreadsheet problem—the need to center a title over a collection of columns (Figure 4–67):

ddle of the row above the month names, including trying to locate a “middle” column. But we’re working with 12 columns here,  aren’t we? There is no middle column. Merge & Center will turn A1:L1 into one cell (of course that’s the range you need  to select), after which Monthly Sales will be precisely centered within the new super cell—which is still called A1.

The drop-down menu attaching to Merge & Center affords three additional options. Merge Across allows you to Merge &  Center data in consecutive rows. Thus if you start with this (Figure 4–68):

You see that I’ve already selected the cells to be merged. Clicking Merge & Center: Merge Across results in this.

(Figure  4–69):

The respective rows are merged—but here, you see that the data in them are centered. At this point, you need to then click the  standard Center button in the Alignment Group in order to centereach bit of data in each new merged cell in each row.

Inelegant, but it works. Merge & Center: Merge Cells duplicates the Merge cells command we described above in the Alignment Dialog Box, and Merge & Center: Unmerge Cells returns all cells back to their original integrity.

An important additional note about the Merge Cells options: Be sure that only the leftmost of the cells you wish to merge has  data in it. Thus if I want to merge cells J12 through N12, and any cells other than J12 have data in them, those data will be lost  when you go ahead with the merge—though Excel will warn you about this prospect with an onscreen message.