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How to identify and select all merged cells in Excel?

Do you know how to find and select all merged cells in Excel? Here is the cool tricky ways to identify and select all merged cells in a selection or range in Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010 quickly.

Identify and select all merged cells with Find command

Identify all merged cells with VBA code

Select and count all merged cells with Kutools for Excel

arrow blue right bubbleIdentify and select all merged cells with Find command

You can identify and select all merged cells in active worksheet by Find command with following steps:

1. Click the Home > Find & Select > Find to open the Find and Replace dialog box. You can also open the Find and Replace dialog box with pressing the Ctrl + F keys.

2. Click the Format button in the dialog box, (If you can't find out the Format button, please click the Options button to expand the dialog.) see screenshot:

doc select merged cells 1

3. In the popping up Find Format dialog box, only check the Merge Cells option in the Text control section under Alignment tab, and click OK.

doc select merged cells 2

4. Now you go back to the Find and Replace dialog box, click Find All button. All merged cells are listed at the bottom of this dialog box. Select all finding results with holding down the Shift key.

Now all merged cells in active sheet are selected when you select all finding results. See screenshot:

doc select merged cells 3

Tips: If you want to only identify, find, and select merged cells in a selection, you need to select the range first.

arrow blue right bubbleIdentify all merged cells with VBA code

VBA 1: Identify and highlight all merged cells

1. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. Click Insert > Module, and paste the following macro in the Module Window.

Sub FindMergedcells()
'updateby Extendoffice
Dim x As Range
For Each x In ActiveSheet.UsedRange
If x.MergeCells Then
x.Interior.ColorIndex = 8
End If
Next
End Sub

3. Press the F5 key to run this macro. All merged cells in active worksheet are identified and highlighted, see screenshot:

doc select merged cells 4

VBA 2: Identify and list all merged cells

1. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. Click Insert > Module, and paste the following macro in the Module Window.

Sub ListMergedcells()
'updateby Extendoffice
Dim x As Range
Dim sMsg As String
sMsg = ""
For Each x In ActiveSheet.UsedRange
If x.MergeCells Then
If sMsg = "" Then
sMsg = "Merged cells:" & vbCr
End If
sMsg = sMsg & Replace(x.Address, "$", "") & vbCr
End If
Next
If sMsg = "" Then
sMsg = "No merged cells."
End If
MsgBox sMsg
End Sub

3. Press the F5 key to run this macro, all merged cells are listed in a popping up dialog box. See screenshot:

doc select merged cells 5

arrow blue right bubble Select and count all merged cells with Kutools for Excel

Kutools for Excel's Select Merged Cells tool will help you identity, find and selected all merged cells in a selection with only one click.

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After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as follows:( Free Download Kutools for Excel Now! )

1. Select the data range that you want to select the merged cells.

2. Click Kutools > Select > Select Merged Cells, see screenshot:

3. And all the merged cells in the selection have been selected at once, and the number of the merged cells are counted as well, see screenshot:

doc select merged cells 7

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  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Natalia · 6 years ago
    Is it possible to identify the first and the last column number of the merged range in vba?
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Ivor Shaer · 6 years ago
    I require code to list merged ranges in a worksheet where the merged ranges are individually entered in cells starting at "A1" thus

    a3:c3
    b2:b7
    etc...........
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Senthooran · 6 years ago
    well done You are a star...
    Thanks :-)
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    srinivasan · 7 years ago
    Very Nice thanks a lot
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    JEAN · 7 years ago
    Actually I just about went mental trying to fix this in a spreadsheet. In desperation I selected all the cells (control A) clicked "merge and centre" and presto! it was fixed.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Chamundi · 7 years ago
    Probably obvious, but: In my last comment I should have made it clear you need to "select" each column, in turn, before scanning visually. Though really you only need to scan certain columns, I think: To the best of my knowledge, it's only cells containing text that will occasionally annex an adjoining cell, and numeric-only columns can be trusted not to do so.

    Even with text columns, you should be OK just checking every other column, because if any cell in the selected column has been involved in an annexation (to the right or from the left), that will show up in a visual scan of the selected column.

    I have never seen annexations occurring vertically, only horizontally. But if such a thing happened (a vertical annexation), you could try the same technique going row by row instead of column by column.

    The procedure is tedious, definitely. A royal pain, in fact. But if you have to sort your data, and Microsoft refuses to fix their bug, it's the only recourse I know of. Nowadays I try to remember to put a space character into each cell of the area I expect to use, prior to entering any other data, thus ensuring no annexations will occur.
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    pavithraravindar · 7 years ago
    thank u this help me to find merged cell in my excel
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Chamundi · 7 years ago
    ... so in the spreadsheet you spoke of, which was not set up with those protective space characters, my approach would be to visually scan each column which lies just to the right of any text column; and immediately after identifying & unmerging each occurrence, I would put a space character in the empty cell so the merging will not recur.

    Probably there's a VBA or other coding means to accomplish this much more efficiently. Anyone???
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Chamundi · 7 years ago
    Actually I think this can be avoided entirely, if you remember to do so before entering data into any text column.

    In my experience the only time cells are clandestinely merged is when an empty cell is to the right of a text cell, where normally the display of the text would be extended to take advantage of the otherwise unused display space provided by the empty cell.

    Therefore, when initially setting up your spreadsheet, before entering any data, you can fill every "susceptible" cell with a single space—as many rows down as you expect to have data to fill. That space will be honored like any other text, and the cell to the left will not annex it.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Chamundi · 7 years ago
    If your spreadsheet is small (or you are desperate enough), the best way I've found is to select one column at a time and scroll all the way down to the bottom. Any merged cells will be obvious, because the entire merged cell is highlighted. You can then fix each one, one by one.

    But you risk wasting a lot of time doing this, since Excel continues to merge cells "behind your back" whenever it feels like doing so.* Therefore, cells you have just unmerged (or others which hadn't been merged before) may become merged while you believe you are finishing the unmerging process.

    I tried to find a way to completely disable the merging of cells but haven't found it. Better, of course, would be some way to keep Excel from engaging in this psychopathic behavior!

    *Yesterday, desperate, I did try to unmerge cells in a not-so-large spreadsheet (22 columns and fewer than 1,000 rows). Each time I thought I had finished and tried to sort, I got that same message. So then I tried another way to identify where the merged cells were—selecting a screenful of rows at a time and trying the sort on just those rows. Each time I got the message, I would try half the screenful at a time (etc.) until I identified the row(s) with merged cells. By going through the entire spreadsheet until each screenful had been successfully sorted, I figured the entire sort should work. But, NOT. Excel had been gleefully merging cells I had just unmerged.

    Please, someone, post a solution!
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Roy · 7 years ago
    This is an incredibly complex process that is way over my head for Excel. All I am looking to do is find out which cells are merged so I can do a sort. I received a message that said merged cells need to be the same size before I can sort and I don't know which ones are merged.
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    Chamundi Sabanathan · 7 years ago
    I have Excel 12.3.6 for Mac and it frequently takes it upon itself to merge cells. Then I cannot sort without identifying and unmerging each merged cell. In a large spreadsheet this is impractical. Should be able to use the "Merge" button in the Toolbox to unmerge all cells in a selected range, rather than just one at a time! Anyone else have this problem? or even better, a solution?