Lets say I had a table with lots of cell merges and formatting. In the column immediately adjacent to this table on the right side I'd like to add some notes that correspond to the rows in the table. However, I don't want to format this additional column to match the rest of the table, I just want it's cells to be merged in the same manner as the cells in the columns that are part of the table.

If I copy a column from the table, paste the formatting in the new column, then delete the borders and shading the merges are the only thing left. That's what I want to do, but not in so many steps. Is there a faster way to go about this? Thanks.