Microsoft KB Archive/275611

= HOW TO: Work with an HTML Table That Contains Merged Cells in Excel 2000 =

Article ID: 275611

Article Last Modified on 9/25/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q275611



IN THIS TASK
SUMMARY
 * Open the HTML Page in Excel
 * Unmerge Any Merged Cells

REFERENCES



SUMMARY
This article describes how to import a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) table and unmerge any cells, so that Excel 2000 can filter and sort the data.

Although you can import HTML tables into Excel, many HTML tables use merged cells that prevent Excel from sorting or filtering the data.

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Open the HTML Page in Excel
To open an HTML page (including tables) in Excel, follow these steps:
 * 1) Start Excel.
 * 2) On the File menu, click Open.
 * 3) In the Files of type list, click Web Pages (*.htm; *.html).
 * 4) To find your Web page, use the Look In box, or copy and paste the page's Web address in the File name box.
 * 5) Click Open.

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Unmerge Any Merged Cells
To unmerge any merged cells and sort the data, follow these steps:  Click any table column header to select the whole column.

NOTE: Although you may not see any table gridlines, you can still click column letters or row numbers to select an whole column or row. On the Data menu, click Sort. In the Sort dialog box, click OK. If you receive the following error message, click OK:

This operation requires the merged cells to be identically sized.

 If you received the error message in step 4, your worksheet contains merged cells. To unmerge these cells, follow these steps:  Press CTRL+A to select the whole worksheet. On the Format menu, click Cells, and then click the Alignment tab.</li> Click to clear the Merge Cells check box (you may have to click two times), and then click OK.</li> Repeat steps 2 and 3.

Excel sorts the data as usual.

NOTE: Excel does not automatically expand the selection to sort all the data on the worksheet. Excel sorts only the data in the selected column unless you specify otherwise.</li></ol> </li></ol>

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