DocumentID: ECMA-376/Part3/2.5.9
Title: ECMA-376, Part3: 2.5.9 Vertically Merged Cells
Extracted-From: ECMA-376 Office Open XML File Formats, 1st Edition / December 2006
Warning: Coverted to HTML format by a script known to have bugs

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2.5.9 Vertically Merged Cells

Although the previous examples may have implied that tables have strict definition of rows, table cells can also be merged vertically. The tcPr element may contain the vmerge element that defines the extent of vertically merged grid columns within a table. A vmerge element with its val attribute set to restart marks the start of a vertically merged cell range. A vmerge element with the val attribute set to continue (the default value) marks the continuation of a vertically merged grid column. Cells between the first and last merged cell that are part of the vertical merge each must have a vmerge element to continue the vertical merge.

For example, consider a table with two rows and two columns:

Merging the two rows in the second column will result in the following table:

The last cell in the first row starts a merge that is completed in the cell below it, resulting in the following WordprocessingML:

<w:tr>
  <w:tc>
    <w:p>
      <w:r>
        <w:t>First cell, first row</w:t>
      </w:r>
    </w:p>
  </w:tc>

  <w:tc>
    <w:tcPr>
      <w:vmerge w:val="restart"/>
    </w:tcPr>
    <w:p>
      <w:r>
        <w:t>Last cell, first row</w:t>
      </w:r>
    </w:p>

    <w:p>
      <w:r>
        <w:t>Last cell, second row</w:t>
      </w:r>
    </w:p>
  </w:tc>
</w:tr>

<w:tr>
  <w:tc>
    <w:p>
      <w:r>
        <w:t>First cell, second row</w:t>
      </w:r>
    </w:p>
  </w:tc>

  <w:tc>
    <w:tcPr>
      <w:vmerge/>
    </w:tcPr>
    <w:p/>
  </w:tc>
</w:tr>

As shown, the vmerge with a value of restart begins (or restarts) a merged region, and the cell with no value is merged with the one above.