I sometimes find myself needing to perform a multi-cell merge on many rows. But - if I select N rows x M columns of cells and choose Merge, I will get a 1x1 merged cell, not N x 1 merged rows (nor 1 x M merged columns). I would like to be able to choose to do the merge row-wise or column-wise rather than in 2D. It could be part of the merge dialog the pops up, and thus a feature of the same single command, or perhaps a separate command if that makes more sense implementation/UX-wise.
Instead of adding commands, you could just apply the merge action to one vector (N rows * 1 column, or 1 row * M columns) and then copy+paste to the rest of the relevant area – 1 pasting action is enough for a group of contiguous cells.
(In reply to ady from comment #1) But I don't want to copy-paste one row into the rest, each row has its own contents.
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #2) > (In reply to ady from comment #1) > > But I don't want to copy-paste one row into the rest, each row has its own > contents. Then use copy + paste special > format only, or "Clone Formatting".
(In reply to ady from comment #3) > Then use copy + paste special > format only, or "Clone Formatting". That doesn't do what I want either, if I want the merging to show all the contents rather than have the first column hide the others. But - if I want hiding, then that does help.