There are Drawbacks of using the widely Merge & Center option, under the Home tab.

You can’t use the Sort or Filter option then.

Sort

If we try to sort the below data in ascending order or Column B, it won’t allow me and throw an error.

Filter

If we try to filter this data, it won’t be able to sort of each of the columns, the Period column will be considered as Column B; it won’t check for Columns of Months & Days.

Selecting an entire column with shortcut

You can’t use the shortcut Ctrl+Spacebar to select an entire column. If we try with Column B, this is what happens.

Remedy for the above points

1. Select the cells that you want to merge.
2. Right-click and go to Format cells (shortcut for this is Ctrl+1).
3. Under Alignment tab -> Text alignment -> Horizontal, select Center Across Selection.

Can’t combine 2 or more cells

You can’t combine contents of 2 or more cells, only the left-top-most cell’s content will remain, everything else will be deleted.

Remedy

Use =CONCATENATE to combine the contents of 2 or more cells.

To learn how to use =CONCATENATE in-depth, click here.