In recent versions of Word, when you merge two columns, you get one tall
cell instead of every two cells in a row merged into a single cell. The
workaround is to use the Eraser button on the Tables and Borders toolbar. If
you carefully erase the column border, you will get each pair of cells
merged as expected.

If you're dealing with single tall cells and are losing text, it could be
because the row height is set to an Exact amount.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
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"tonyb" wrote in message
...
After scanning a 30 page document with an OCR program I have text in 2
columns in a table that I would like to combine into 1 column. I can
merge 2
cells but I cannot find a way to merge 2 columns without losing text.