1)Merging cells causes 2 or more cells to behave as one larger cell. Only
the contents of the upper left cell in the range will be retained. The
contents of the other cells will be lost...hence, the Excel warning.

2)You may be thinking of <edit<fill<justify, which spreads a
single-column, vertical range of cells so it fits within the selected range
of cells

3)[alt][enter] inserts a new line in text in a cell. It doesn't merge text
from any other cells.

Does that help?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"auntieboop" wrote:

I highlight the row I want to merge together into one cell, formal,
alignment, merge cells. Isn't this correct? The error messge says will keep
the upper most only. Why?? I've done it before & don't understand why I can't
now. Also, isn't alt enter suppose to merge 2 lines into the same cell?

Thank you