Jack asked about centering titles above a report. I suggested Center Across Selection, and Jack's coworker suggested Merge and Center.While it is a lot easier to find Merge and Center, there are reasons why you don't want to use this to method to center titles for your reports. In Episode #1443 Bill shows how to use the Center Across Selection method and explains why we don't want to use the Merge and Center method for our titles.
Transcript of the video:
MrExcel Podcast is sponsored by Easy-XL. Learn Excel from MrExcel, Episode 1443 – Center Across Selection Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
Today's question, I was talking to Jack in Czech.
He was watching me do something in Excel, and I put a title up here.
He said, “Why?
Hey, can you move it over to like column C, and right justify it?” I said, “Are you trying to get it centered?” He's like, “Yes, I'm trying to get it centered”.
Oh, wait.
“There's a better way to center that,” I said.
Undo, undo, come over here.
Select that title and select all four cells that I want it centered above, and then I use Ctrl 1.You could also use the dialogue launcher, and under horizontal, there's a setting for Center Across Selection.
So run your alignment tab, go to the horizontal drop-down, Center Across Selection and click OK.
And that solves the problem from me.
If I make it larger, it still continues to center.
Everything is really good, put that Title sitting back there in cell B1.
And someone else said, “Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Why don’t you just merge and center?” So merge and center is right there.
Let's try that.
We’ll put Title here, select all four cells.
Actually you know what?
I'm going to do it up above, just to prove a point.
So up here, we're going to select all four cells, and then merge and center, all right.
Now they both kind of look the same, right?
They both have the same feature that, you know, they continue to center, but here's the problem.
Let's say that I’m done here.
I've selected a single column, hold down the Shift key, up, up, up, up, up, up.
When I get to mine, the center across selection, my selection does not expand, but as soon as I hit that merge cell again, the thing now is all four columns, right.
There's lots of reasons why we don't like merge cells.
You can't sort anything that's merged and so on, but the thing that just drives me crazy is, I have a single column and I really don't want it to become four columns when I hit the merge cell.
So for my money, center across selection, even though it's not here on the ribbon, you have to go into the dialogue launcher in order to find it.
It is a much, much better way to go than merge cells.
Next time you needed a title stretched across, just put the title in the first cell, select all four cells, Ctrl 1, go to the alignment tab, center across selection.
Give that a shot.
Hey, thank you for stopping by.
I’ll see you next time on another netcast from MrExcel.
Today's question, I was talking to Jack in Czech.
He was watching me do something in Excel, and I put a title up here.
He said, “Why?
Hey, can you move it over to like column C, and right justify it?” I said, “Are you trying to get it centered?” He's like, “Yes, I'm trying to get it centered”.
Oh, wait.
“There's a better way to center that,” I said.
Undo, undo, come over here.
Select that title and select all four cells that I want it centered above, and then I use Ctrl 1.You could also use the dialogue launcher, and under horizontal, there's a setting for Center Across Selection.
So run your alignment tab, go to the horizontal drop-down, Center Across Selection and click OK.
And that solves the problem from me.
If I make it larger, it still continues to center.
Everything is really good, put that Title sitting back there in cell B1.
And someone else said, “Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Why don’t you just merge and center?” So merge and center is right there.
Let's try that.
We’ll put Title here, select all four cells.
Actually you know what?
I'm going to do it up above, just to prove a point.
So up here, we're going to select all four cells, and then merge and center, all right.
Now they both kind of look the same, right?
They both have the same feature that, you know, they continue to center, but here's the problem.
Let's say that I’m done here.
I've selected a single column, hold down the Shift key, up, up, up, up, up, up.
When I get to mine, the center across selection, my selection does not expand, but as soon as I hit that merge cell again, the thing now is all four columns, right.
There's lots of reasons why we don't like merge cells.
You can't sort anything that's merged and so on, but the thing that just drives me crazy is, I have a single column and I really don't want it to become four columns when I hit the merge cell.
So for my money, center across selection, even though it's not here on the ribbon, you have to go into the dialogue launcher in order to find it.
It is a much, much better way to go than merge cells.
Next time you needed a title stretched across, just put the title in the first cell, select all four cells, Ctrl 1, go to the alignment tab, center across selection.
Give that a shot.
Hey, thank you for stopping by.
I’ll see you next time on another netcast from MrExcel.
