... that is the question.

And the answer might surprise you more than a little.

Merging cells is something we do quite often, and for very good reasons. When the text is deomstrably larger than a single cell, it often makes sense for aesthetic purposes to try and fit it, or merge it, across multiple cells.

Except there's one rather large, inconvenient problem. Merging cells can be quite problematic, since any subsequent formatting must of necessity account for these merged cells. Formatting borders, filling colors, or even simple shifting of merged cells can throw up error messages that are time consuming to solve at best, and supremely frustrating at worst.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that there is a percfectly acceptable solution. The only caveat being the fact that it is hidden away, deep within Excel's darkest recesses. In true, time honored Microsoft tradition, it reveals itself only to the most determined researcher, and that after many hours of clicking around. But for you, dear reader, there's a shortcut to nirvana: read on!

Here's what you need to do:

Select the text that you need to fit into a single cell:

Move your mouse over to the "Font" section on the Home tab:

Click on the little arrow that is (barely) visible towards the bottom right of that box.

The "Format Cells" pop-up box should materialize  - make sure you choose the "Alignment" tab.

Under the Text Alignment section, for the Horizontal drop-down box, choose "Center Across Selection"

And it's as simple as that!

It looks for all the world as if the cells have been merged, but in reality, all that has happened is that the text has literally been centered across that seelction, with the intervening borders removed.

Works like a charm, and is much more convenient than merging cells.

Now, if we could only figure out just why it's hidden away in that little niche...