How to Automatically Merge Blank Cells Above/Left in Excel?

Merging is one of the most complicated processes in Excel. If we merge the cells incorrectly, data may be lost and cannot be recovered. We can use the process mentioned in this article to do it more carefully, which only considers empty cells. This tutorial will help you understand how we can automatically merge blank cells above or left in Excel. Combining multiple cells together is known as merging.

Automatically Merge Blank Cells Above

Here we will insert a VBA module and then run it to complete our task. Let us see a straightforward process to understand how we can automatically merge blank cells above in Excel using the vba code.

Step 1

Consider an Excel sheet with data similar to the one shown in the image below.

To open the VBA application, right-click on the sheet name and select View Code, then click on the inset and select Module, and type Program 1 into the text box as shown in the below image.

Example 1

Sub MergeCells()
'Update By Nirmal
   Dim xRg As Range
   Dim xCell As Range
   Dim xAddress As String
   On Error Resume Next
   xAddress = Application.ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Address
   Set xRg = Application.InputBox("Select a range:", "Choose the Range", xAddress, , , , , 8)
   If xRg Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
   For Each xCell In xRg
      If xCell.Value = "" Then
         Range(xCell, xCell.Offset(-1, 0)).Merge
      End If
   Next
End Sub

Step 2

Now click on F5 to run the VBA code, then in the pop-up, select the range you want to merge, and click on OK.

Our final output will look like the below image.

If you only want to allow mering for one of the cells above, use Program 2 in the VBA application. 

Example 2

Sub mergeblankswithabove()
'Updated By Nirmal
   Dim I As Long
   Dim xRow As Long
   Dim xRg As Range
   Dim xCell As Range
   Dim xAddress As String
   On Error Resume Next
   xAddress = Application.ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Address
   Set xRg = Application.InputBox("Select a range (single column):", "Choose the Range", xAddress, , , , , 8)
   If xRg Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
   If xRg.Columns.Count > 1 Then
      MsgBox "Only work for single column", , "Range selected"
      Exit Sub
   End If
   xRow = xRg.Rows.Count
   Set xRg = xRg(xRow)
   For I = xRow To 1 Step -1
      Set xCell = xRg.Offset(I - xRow, 0)
      Debug.Print xCell.Address
      If xCell.Value = "" Then Range(xCell, xCell.Offset(-1, 0)).Merge
   Next
End Sub

Automatically Merge Blank Cells Left

Here we will insert the VBA module and then run it to complete our task. Let us see a straightforward process to understand how we can automatically merge blank cells. left in Excel using the VBA code.

Step 1

Consider an Excel sheet with data similar to the one shown in the image below.

To open the VBA application, right-click on the sheet name and select View Code, then click on the inset and select Module, and type Program 3 into the text box as shown in the below image.

Example 3

Sub mergeblankswithleft()
'Update by Nirmal
   Dim xRg As Range
   Dim xCell As Range
   Dim xAddress As String
   On Error Resume Next
   xAddress = Application.ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Address
   Set xRg = Application.InputBox("Select a range:", "Range to merge", xAddress, , , , , 8)
   If xRg Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
   For Each xCell In xRg
      If xCell.Value = "" Then Range(xCell, xCell.Offset(0, -1)).Merge
   Next
End Sub

Step 2

Now click on F5 to run the vba code, then in the pop-up, select the range you want to merge, and click on "OK." Our final output will look like the below image.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we used a simple example to demonstrate how we can automatically merge blank cells in Excel.

Updated on: 10-Jan-2023

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