Virginia
You mention Emachine and Windows XP. Neither of those have anything to do
with Excel as far as I know.
I assume you have Office and/or Excel installed also.
To merge cells select your cells to merge then Format>Cells>Alignment and
check "merge cells".
Alternate is Tools>Customize>Commands>Format and drag the "merge and center"
button to your Toolbar.
Having given you that, I will give you some more advice. Stay away from
"merged Cells" if at all possible. You can wind up with a host of problems
when trying to copy, move, sort rows/columns with merged cells.
Better to use Format>Cells>Alignment "center across selection".
Gord Dibben Excel MVP - XL97 SR2 & XL2002