New sheet with hidden cells

[Melissa Bartman <me...@icloud.com.INVALID>]

Hello,
Please help me. I just created a file with ten worksheets for a new job. I need the new sheet to merge the first three columns but when I try to do that I get a message that says, “Should the contents of the hidden cells be moved into the first cell?” I’ve checked the sheet formatting but it should be an unformatted sheet if it’s new. I went to the setting for row - show and column show to expose any hidden. That doesn’t help. And it doesn’t matter if I say yes or no to the message. I get one wide column. Text is gone. I tried formatting the column Top Right justified and then I see only the top word. The rest disappears Screen shots are below.  
It took me three weeks to create the sheets and it would be devastating if the file has been corrupted in some way.
Please please help.



All the Best!
Melissa Bartman
melbartman@icloud.com
602-501-7123

Re: New sheet with hidden cells

[Brian Barker <b....@btinternet.com.INVALID>]

At 13:07 04/09/2018 -0500, Melissa Bartman wrote:
>I just created a file with ten worksheets for a new job. I need the 
>new sheet to merge the first three columns but when I try to do that 
>I get a message that says, "Should the contents of the hidden cells 
>be moved into the first cell?"

When you merge cells, one or more cells become hidden. If you merge, 
say, A1 and B1, the visible merged cell is A1 and cell B1 is now 
hidden. OpenOffice is helpfully offering to combine the existing 
contents of the original cells into the one merged cell. If you 
accept the offer, it will even add spaces between the separate text items.

>And it doesn't matter if I say yes or no to the message. I get one 
>wide column.

I'm not sure what you are trying to do here - or even what you think 
you are trying to do. If you select the first three columns and then 
use Merge Cells, you are merging all the cells in all the rows in 
those three columns into *one* cell. So yes: you will see one wide 
column with only one row. If that is not what you want, you are not 
using the right facility.

>Text is gone.

No, it hasn't. Your second screenshot clearly shows - in the Input 
Line - the assembled text in your single merged cell. The only reason 
that you cannot see it in the cell is that by default text is placed 
at the bottom of a cell, so it will appear level with the very last 
row in the spreadsheet; that's row 1048576! If your format your 
merged cell to have vertical text alignment of "Top", you will see the text.

>I tried formatting the column Top Right justified and then I see 
>only the top word. The rest disappears

That will be because on that occasion you chose "No" in answer to 
"Should the contents of the hidden cells be moved into the first cell?".

>It took me three weeks to create the sheets and it would be 
>devastating if the file has been corrupted in some way.

There is no corruption evident. In any case, surely you keep back-up 
copies on some external device of anything that took you that long to create?

Now what exactly is it that you are trying to do?

o You say it is a new sheet, which suggests that it is empty. What, 
then, is your perceived use in merging empty columns? The usefulness 
of merging cells is when you merge cells in some rows but not.

o Do you just need a column wider than normal? You can easily drag 
column boundaries or set individual column widths.

o Do you mean that you already have text in the first three columns 
(unlike your screenshot) and that you wish to merge that text? In 
that case, the only way to merge three cells in each row is to merge 
the relevant cells in each row *separately*. In this case, it would 
be much easier just to concatenate your existing text. For example, enter
=A1&B1&C1
or possibly
=A1&" "&B1&" "&C1
into D1 and fill it down column D. Now that you have your merged 
text, you can copy it back to column A (or wherever) if you prefer. 
You will need to use Paste Special... instead of ordinary Paste and 
to ensure that "Paste all" and Formulae are *not* ticked in the Paste 
Special dialogue.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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Re: New sheet with hidden cells

[Martin Groenescheij <ma...@groenescheij.com>]

On 5/9/18 4:07 am, Melissa Bartman wrote:
> Hello,
> Please help me. I just created a file with ten worksheets for a new 
> job. I need the new sheet to merge the first three columns but when I 
> try to do that I get a message that says, “Should the contents of the 
> hidden cells be moved into the first cell?”

What you have done is selecting the whole columns which means you merge 
$Sheet21.$A$1:$C$1048576
or All Cells from A1 to C1048576 resulting in merging more than 3 
million cells into 1
What you should do is Select and Merge $A$1:$C$1 and repeat this for 
each row you want to merge.
Merging the whole columns doesn't make sense as it will be easier to 
adjust the width of Column A

> I’ve checked the sheet formatting but it should be an unformatted 
> sheet if it’s new.

All sheets have a format it's called Default.

> I went to the setting for row - show and column show to expose any 
> hidden. That doesn’t help. And it doesn’t matter if I say yes or no to 
> the message.

Yes it does matter if you say Yes it moves the values of all selected 
cells into the resulting merged cell.
And because the sheet has a default format you see the result "test this 
out to see what will happen"
at the bottom row 1048576, you just haven't scrolled down to see this.
If you had said No it had only the text "test" from Cell A1 displayed at 
row 1048576

> I get one wide column. Text is gone. I tried formatting the column Top 
> Right justified and then I see only the top word. The rest disappears 
> Screen shots are below.
> It took me three weeks to create the sheets and it would be 
> devastating if the file has been corrupted in some way.

Some good advice: Test these things at the beginning of your project. 
When you haven't done it at the beginning
test things on a copy of your document this way you always can go back 
to the original.

> Please please help.
>
>
> All the Best!
> Melissa Bartman
> melbartman@icloud.com <ma...@icloud.com>
> 602-501-7123
>
>
>