I don't believe that you can protect the merge when using 'cut' : you are
cutting the contents (including format) to paste elsewhere! The only quick
solution I can think of is; after 'paste', click on the format brush and
click back on the cut cell.
Perhaps somebody else has a better solution!

"Chas486" wrote:

I have a complex sheet that has several merged cells. When I cut data from
one cell (2 merged cells), to paste it into another cell (2 merged cells),
the original cell I cut it from loses its merged cell format and goes back to
2 cells. How do I protect that format so that the cells don't unmerge? I
can use the protection on the sheet to keep borders from deleting, but not
the merge cell function.