When you copy and then paste cells in a merged cell, Microsoft Excel may remove the merge cell formatting (unmerge the cell) and duplicate the contents of the copied cells in the unmerged cells.

This behavior can occur when the following conditions are true:

• You select a range of cells and click the Merge and Center button on the Formatting toolbar.
  
  -and-
• You select other (unmerged) cells that contain data and click Copy on the Edit menu.
  
  -and-
• You click the merged cell, and then click Paste on the Edit menu.

You can create a merged cell by combining two or more selected cells. Excel places the data in the upper-leftmost cell of the selection in the resulting merged cell. The upper-left cell contains the value or formula for the merged cells.

To copy data into a merged cell, the copied range must have the same number of columns or rows as the range of cells that you merged, or the copied range must be a single cell. For example, if you merge cells A1:B3, you cannot copy cells C1 and C2 in the merged cell because the number of rows in the copied range do not equal the number of rows in the cells that you merged. However, you can copy cells C1 and D1 in the merged cell. Excel duplicates the contents of the copied cells in the cells that comprise the previously merged cell.

When you copy multiple cells and paste them in a single merged cell, the formatting in the destination cell (merged cell) is replaced by the formatting of the copied cell. The information that you copy from the source cell is duplicated in the cells in the destination cells (the previously merged cell). For example, if you copy two cells and paste them in a cell that you merged from four cells, the contents appear twice, and therefore are able to fill the number of cells in the destination range.

For additional information about merging cells, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about merged cells, click Microsoft Excel Help on the Help menu, type merged cells in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topics returned.