Need help with Merging cells but with separations

[DanielleM]

Hi I am a school teacher and we are using excel for some files for students, but are having difficulty.... hopefully this will make sense.... we are putting goals in a spread sheet for each child lets say in the d column...in a, b, and c we have marking periods 1, 2, and 3. in the first three columns we are putting letters in and i want to basically "lock" the a-d cells. we are also going to be inputting more in the d column so everytime we do that the letters in the a, b, and c column wont match up then with the goals in the d column.....I dont want to merge them because then it becomes one cell and i want a separation between the three.....can anyone help...hope it wasn't confusing

thanks in advance

Danielle

[bentleybob]

Yes, that's confusing. Can you attach a sample with a couple of examples of what you're looking for?

[DanielleM]

here is an example hope it helps

[FDibbins]

what do you mean merge? your example shows your data, please also include what your expected outcome would be, and how you arrived at that

[DanielleM]

i am basically trying to get column a, b, c, and d to mover together when something is inserted above column d

[FDibbins]

umm huh? if you enter something in D, and then join/merge/whatever you want to call it, a.b.c and d, then the data in the last 3 will be lost. unless you want to add a helper in E and concatenate all 4 entries?

=if(D1="","",A1&B1&C1&D1)
or, if you want spaces btwn...
=if(D1="","",A1&" "&B1&" "&C1&" "&D1)