Any way of repeatedly merging cells down a column?

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Level 1

11 points

Any way of repeatedly merging cells down a column?

I want to merge blocks of 4 cells at a time (to create bigger blocks). I tried copying format, but that didn't work. As far as I can tell, if you want to repeatedly merge cells (I have a column with about a thousand cells, I want to manipulate it so there is 250 cells), there is not way you can do this (fill down etc doesn't work for formats like this).

Am I missing something?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Mar 23, 2009 10:43 AM

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Answer 1

Badunit

Level 7

30,708 points

Mar 23, 2009 10:50 AM in response to bingo6

Copy/paste.

Merge one set of cells. Select them. Copy. Drag a box to cover where you want cells merged. Paste.

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Answer 2

Mar 23, 2009 11:03 AM in response to bingo6

I can't guess why you would want to do this, so my suggestion by not fit your need. I would consider adding a Table with only 1 column and 250 rows which can very quickly be sized as you wish. Place it adjacent to column of 1000 rows table. Select the new table by clicking on the table name in the Sheets pane to reveal the corner and side open-box handles. Position the new table to align the top border, then grab the bottom handle and stretch the table until it bottom-aligns with your longer table.

It would also be possible to use the Table Inspector to set the row height exactly, to something like 2".

In the end you will have:

Jerry

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Answer 3

bingo6 Author

Level 1

11 points

Mar 23, 2009 11:23 AM in response to Jerrold Green1

Yes, these methods work fine. But it still is not an elegant way of accomplishing this quickly. Ideally, one could select a column, and just reformat it so it is x-many cells.

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Answer 4

Mar 23, 2009 11:55 AM in response to bingo6

If you submit feedback to Apple, they may grant your wish in some future release. In this forum we're just working with what we've got.

Jerry

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Answer 5

Badunit

Level 7

30,708 points

Mar 23, 2009 12:32 PM in response to bingo6

Is it really all that inelegant to drag a box and press Cmd-V? I tried it. It took me about 10 seconds to complete the task for 1000 rows (a slight bit longer if you don't zoom out before dragging the box).

If this was a task everyone did repeatedly and often, I'd agree it would be a useful feature to be able to "select a column and format it into X many cells". But if it is seldom used and if there is already a simple way to accomplish the same task (which there is), it would just add to feature bloat.

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Answer 6

bingo6 Author

Level 1

11 points

Mar 23, 2009 12:47 PM in response to Badunit

One persons "daily" task is another persons "monthly" task or even "yearly", or "feature bloat". There are many, many, tasks like this in spreadsheet use. A relative handful of workflows which everyone uses every day, compared to the huge variety of tasks which are user specific. The ability to drag formatting is pretty standard in spreadsheet programs (for example, this is trivial in excel).

I'm optimistic that then next version of numbers will be more of a workhorse, and not just suited to those making one-page documents.

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Answer 7

Badunit

Level 7

30,708 points

Mar 23, 2009 1:32 PM in response to bingo6

No argument on everyone having different workflows. But this isn't Excel and there are other ways to do things than the Excel way (though the Excel way is pretty good at times). If you are often creating new spreadsheets with every four cells in one column merged, do it once and save it as a template.

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