Merge

Merge operations are a presentation change only. The underlying table data is still uses an M×N matrix. Cells covered by a merge may be empty because their content is not displayed.

Novem allows you to merge table cells together for more complex layout such as multi column or multi index views.

When merging cells the styling, formatting and content of the merged cell will be the value of the left, top most cell. Content and formatting of all the other cells in the merged set, except width, will be discarded.

The merging operation is the last operation applied to the dataset, meaning no other instructions will have to be adjusted to account for the merged layout.

Merging cells is similar to other novem slicing operations in that a slicing selector is created to define the cells to operate on. Unlike other table cell options the only action is to merge, so no further parameters are needed.

In addition, as you can only merge a continuous selection of cells, step operations are not allowed in novem merge selectors.

Creating category columns

A common way to use cell merges is to delineate different categories where a common set of sub-titles is shared amongst super titles.

Select the adjacent header cells that should share one heading.

  0    1:6    cat1  -- Merge category 1
  0    7:12   cat2  -- Merge category 2