merge & split cells

Hi Shuncle,
Welcome to Numbers discussions.

Yep, that's a issue that's been bantered about in these discussions many times. Use Search, upper right, you'll come across numerous posts on split cells.

Be aware the folks on these Discussion boards are, as yourself end users not Apple employees. Apple doesn't monitor these discussions.

Send feedback directly to the Numbers team for enhancement requests: at the top of your screen to the right of the Apple logo please click Numbers > Provide Numbers Feedback. Explain in detail what your thoughts about split cells. This makes your request known to that team directly; don't expect to hear back from them. I've sent many, and about split cells as well.

Let's hope the next version of iWork incorporates many of the requested enhancements.

Thank you in advance for doing that.

Again, welcome to Numbers Discussions, have fun here.

Cordially,
RicD

Hi Shuncle,
Thank you for sending feedback to the Numbers team. Eagerly I'm awaiting the next iWork version. As for merge cells, I'll only merge even number of cells.

For my non collaborative files I use Numbers, for collaboration I must use Excel. Mine is MS Office for the Mac 2004, some here use 2008 with good success. If you don't have MS office for the Mac, don't want to purchase it look at NeoOffice http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php, or Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/ , both are good alternatives to MS Office. One must use the tool that performs the desired task.

Allow me to suggest using the Search feature in these forums, thousands of questions have been asked and answered. Again, welcome to Numbers discussions.

Cordially,

RicD

Shuncle wrote:
In the meantime, I will try not to merge any cells I may want to split later.

Not to take this too far off topic, but the design of Numbers includes several non-reversible features (assuming "undo" is not available or would undo more than you want). For example, enter the text "March 1" in a cell preset to the text format. If you later set the cell's format to automatic, the cell data is irreversibly set to a date.

More than once, I've selected a group of cells & accidentally made changes like this, usually when the selection is larger than what shows in the document window, & only too late to use "undo" noticed what had happened. (Should you be wondering, "March 1" means something entirely different from a date in a spreadsheet used to record cues for musical events!)

So I've learned to be very careful when making any of these changes, & to backup my Numbers spreadsheets more frequently than I would other documents.

You can merge columns with impunity as long as you always select an EVEN number of columns and set all to the same width using the inspector before splitting.
Best

Say you merged 3 cells horizontally.
Step 1: add a new column after the merged cell. Doesn't matter if it's empty, we'll delete it again shortly.

Step 2: select the merged cell and the one next to it (from the new row). Merge the two. Now you have a new merged cell, out of 4 cells, instead of the original 3.

Step 3: (This step only for columns of different widths)
Select the four columns that contain the new merged cell. Make them the same width, by dragging the right margin, in the ruler.

Step 4: now you can split away, first in two, then split the resulting cells in two. You have four cells.

Step 5: delete the row you added at step 1.

Step 6: Done! (You only need to readjust the original column widths, those that you modified at step 3)

If you have cells merged vertically, you follow the same procedure, except that you add a new row below.

Ashka, how does one exactly merge columns?

I've searched high and sober, here there & everywhere, but cannot find how to do this.

I have a column of First names and Family names, and want to make a single "Full Name" column.

I'm at a loss!

The Help explains perfectly:

Merging Table Cells
Merging table cells combines adjacent cells into one, eliminating the borders so that they behave as a single cell.

To merge table cells:
Select a group of two or more adjacent table cells. The group of cells you choose must form a rectangle, and they must be all body cells, all header cells, or all footer cells.

Choose Table > Merge Cells.

You can also click the Merge button in the Table inspector.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE mercredi 11 février 2009 23:07:29)

Thanks Yvan, but I'm responding to Ashka, who said they could merge columns not cells, I know how to merge cells very well thank you; I'm asking about columns not cells (hence the use of the word columns, not cells).

Hope this clears it up for you.

What I should have written back in September last year was merge cells across columns with impunity.
My only excuse for leaving two words out was that I was trying to help Numbers users while I was cooking our evening meal.