Issue to check cell value

Question

Issue to check cell value

Jonathan 300

Hi,

The value is occupying 2 cells like

User's image

when I checked the value on row 24, it seems to be empty. How to ensure that both cells on line 24, 25 are with a value?

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Answer 1

BabybooHN 1,135 Independent Advisor

Dear @Jonathan,

This issue occurs because cells in rows 24 and 25 are merged into a single cell, or vertical alignment settings make row 24 appear empty while holding the merged selection. When cells are merged in Excel, only the top-left cell retains the actual data value, making the lower cell return empty during lookups or formulas.

Here is how to fix this and ensure both rows have valid values:

Method 1: Unmerge Cells and Fill Down (Recommended)

Select the merged cell across rows 24 and 25.
Go to the Home tab > in the Alignment group, click Merge & Center to unmerge the cells.
The value ("Software Maintenance") will remain in row 24, while row 25 becomes blank.
Select row 24, copy it, and paste it into row 25 (or select row 24, press Ctrl + D on row 25) to fill the value down.

User's image

Method 2: Adjust Row Height & Text Alignment (If merging was unintentional)

If you did not intend to merge the cells, the text might simply be spanning due to row height or vertical alignment settings:

Select rows 24 and 25.
Go to the Home tab > Alignment group.
Click Top Align or Middle Align to center text visually within individual, unmerged cells.

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BabybooHN 1,135 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-07T01:30:57.1166667+00:00

Dear @Jonathan,

I hope you’re doing well. I just wanted to check in and see how things are going with the steps I shared earlier. If you ran into any difficulties at any point or if something is unclear, please don’t hesitate to let me know. I completely understand that these processes can sometimes be tricky, and I’m here to make it as easy as possible for you.

Feel free to share any details or questions you might have, I’m ready to listen and assist you further.
Jonathan 300 Reputation points

2026-08-07T06:40:24.2066667+00:00

Thanks. You mean to manually put the value on both cells. On VBA, no way to get "that value" of one cell (having 2 merged cells), right?
BabybooHN 1,135 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-10T03:34:28.7066667+00:00
Dear @Jonathan,

You are correct, when two cells are merged, VBA only recognizes the value of the top‑left cell in the merged range. There is no way to directly read a “combined” value from the merged cells.

If you need to access the value programmatically, you should reference the top‑left cell of the merged area. For example:

Dim rng As Range Set rng = Range("A1").MergeArea MsgBox rng.Cells(1, 1).Value

This will always return the value stored in the merged range. If you want both cells to hold the same value, you would need to manually copy the value into each cell, or use VBA to assign it.

Official documentation: Range.MergeArea property