It’s called Center Across Selection.
Unlike merging, Center Across Selection leaves all cells in place but still centers text across columns.
Let’s take a look.
Recall that Merge & Center physically merges cells and centers the remaining text.
Only the value in the upper left cell is maintained.
Other text, if it exists, is destroyed during the merge.
In contrast, Center Across Selection only centers text; it does not combine cells.
Like merging, the first step is to snag the cells across which you’d like to center text.
From the Horizontal menu, select Center Across Selection and click OK.
The result looks the same as a merge, but all the cells are still in place.
If we check the Format Cells dialog box, we’ll see that Merge is left unchecked.
Now let’s apply the Merge and Center approach to our main table.
The results look the same as merging, but all cells are intact.
