Unmerge Cells in Excel

Last Updated :

21 Aug, 2024

Blog Author :

Edited by :

Ashish Kumar Srivastav

Reviewed by :

Dheeraj Vaidya, CFA, FRM

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How to Unmerge Cells in Excel? (using 3 methods)

There are 3 methods to unmerge cells in excel:

  1. Unmerge Cells using Excel Ribbon
  2. Unmerge Cells using Excel Shortcut
  3. Unmerge Cells and Copy the Original Value to Each Unmerged Cell

Let us discuss each of them in detail -

Method #1 - Unmerge Cells Using the Excel Ribbon

We have given below order details product-wise. Let us discuss these with the help of examples.
Unmerge Cells in Excel Example 1

Follow the below steps for unmerging the cells:

  1. Select the cells that you want to unmerge. Then, refer to the below screenshot.


    Unmerge Cells in Excel Example 1-1

  2. Go to the "Home" tab, click on the "Merge & Center" option under "Alignment," and then click on the dropdown menu. It will display a list of items, as shown in the below screenshot. Next, click on the "Unmerge Cells" option.


    Unmerge Cells Example 1-2

  3. This option will unmerge all the merged cells in the selection.


    The final result is shown below:

    Unmerge Cells Example 1-3

Explanation

It will place the content of each merged cell into the upper left cell, and other unmerged cells will be empty.

Method #2 - Unmerge Cells Using Keyboard Shortcut Keys

  • Select the cells you want to merge and press the ALT + H + M + U, which will unmerge all the unmerged cells.
shortcutkey to Unmerge cells

Also, have a look at these top excel shortcuts.

Method #3 - Unmerge Cells and Copy the Original Value to Each Unmerged Cell

In the above example, as we can see, the result is not in a structured format. In some cases, you need to do both things simultaneously: Unmerging the cells and filling each unmerged cell with the value from the original cell.

We will learn this with the below example.

Let us take the order data product-wise again.

Unmerge Cells in Excel Example 3

To unmerge cells and fill the cells with original values. Follow the below steps:

  • Select the cells that have merged, then go to the "Home" tab and click on the "Merge & Center" option under the "Alignment." Then, click on the dropdown menu. It will display a list of items under that click on the "Unmerge Cells" option.
Unmerge Cells Example 3-1
  • It will unmerge all the cells, as shown in the below screenshot.
Unmerge Cells Example 3-2
  • Select the entire table again, go to the "Home" tab, and then click on the "Find & Select" option under the "Edition" section. It will open a dropdown list, as shown below. Next, click on the "Go To Special" option.
Unmerge Cells Example 3-3
  • It will open a "Go To Special" dialog box, as shown in the below screenshot.
Go To Special dialog box
  • Click on the "Blanks" radio button below, then click "OK."
Click on the Blanks
  • It will select all the blank cells. See the below screenshot.
select all the blank cells
  • Type the = (equal sign) and press the up arrow key on the keyboard. Then, refer to the below screenshot.
equal sign
  • It will create a simple formula that fills the blank cell with the value from the above cell. As we want to fill all unmerged cells currently blank, press the CTRL+ENTER key to enter the formula in all the selected cells.

The final result is shown below:

Unmerge Cells Example 3-8

Things to Remember

  • Before unmerging the cells, It needs to check whether the merged cells are there in the selected area or not.
  • For this, we must choose the cells in the worksheet.
  • On the "Home" tab in the "Alignment" section, check:
  • If the "Merge & Center" option is not highlighted, there are no merged cells in the selected area.

This article has been a guide to Unmerge Cells in Excel. Here, we discuss how to unmerge cells using the Excel ribbon method and Excel shortcut and copy the original value to unmerged cells, along with practical examples and a downloadable Excel template. You may learn more about Excel from the following articles: -

  • Merge Worksheet in Excel
  • Column Merge Excel
  • Merge and Center Excel
  • Shortcut to Merge Cells in Excel
  • Quotient in Excel