How to apply Excel “Center Across Selection” in PhpSpreadsheet XLSX files

by jrklein Developer Tips, PHP+MySQL Tips

Someone suggested replacing Merged Cells in our Excel-formatted (.xlsx) reports with “Center Across Selection” which gives the same visual result without the undesirable side effects of merged cells.

We currently use PhpSpreadsheet v1.16 to generate our Excel-formatted (.xlsx) reports.

I could NOT find any PhpSpreadsheet documentation or discussion of this feature, other than the following PhpSpreadsheet CHANGELOG reference from over a decade ago:

Horizontal center across selection - @Erik Tilt

I dug into Microsoft file format reference material and finally determined that the PhpSpreadsheet equivalent to Excel “Center Across Selection” is the “Alignment::HORIZONTAL_CENTER_CONTINUOUS” value (aka “centerContinuous”).

Here’s how to apply Excel “Center Across Selection” to a range in PhpSpreadsheet:

$spreadsheet = new Spreadsheet();
$sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();
$sheet->getStyle("A1:C1")->getAlignment()->setHorizontal(Alignment::HORIZONTAL_CENTER_CONTINUOUS);
$sheet->setCellValue("A1", "Example");

The code above will write text “Example” to cell A1. The text will be centered across 3 cells (A1,B1,C1).

Did you find this helpful? Let me know by sending me a comment. I tend to update and maintain posts more frequently if I know others find them helpful. Thanks for visiting!