How to merge cells with Google Sheets API?

Question

I am using the Python client for the Google Sheets API to build a spreadsheet. I am able to create a new sheet and update values in it, but I have been unable to merge cells for the header row that I want.

top_header_format = [
    {'mergeCells': {
        'mergeType': 'MERGE_COLUMNS',
        'range': {
            'endColumnIndex': 3,
            'endRowIndex': 1,
            'sheetId': '112501875',
            'startColumnIndex': 0,
            'startRowIndex': 0
        }
    }},
    {'mergeCells': {
        'mergeType': 'MERGE_COLUMNS',
         'range': {
             'endColumnIndex': 5,
             'endRowIndex': 1,
             'sheetId': '112501875',
             'startColumnIndex': 3,
             'startRowIndex': 0
         }
    }}
]

service.spreadsheets().batchUpdate(
    spreadsheetId=spreadsheet_id,
    body={'requests': top_header_format}
).execute()

This is the code I am running. There are no errors. The response's replies are empty and the spreadsheet doesn't have merged cells. The documentation is here.

Answer 1

Start indexes are inclusive and end indexes are exclusive, so by asking to merge row [0,1) you're saying "i want to merge row 0 into row 0", which is a no-op. You probably want [0,2), e.g:

top_header_format = [
    {'mergeCells': {
        'mergeType': 'MERGE_COLUMNS',
        'range': {
            'endColumnIndex': 4,
            'endRowIndex': 2,
            'sheetId': '112501875',
            'startColumnIndex': 0,
            'startRowIndex': 0
        }
    }},
    {'mergeCells': {
        'mergeType': 'MERGE_COLUMNS',
         'range': {
             'endColumnIndex': 6,
             'endRowIndex': 2,
             'sheetId': '112501875',
             'startColumnIndex': 3,
             'startRowIndex': 0
         }
    }}
]

Answer 2

If someone looking for doing merging with PHP, you can use this code below:

For merging cells first you will have to download the PHP library from composer as in their documentation ( https://developers.google.com/sheets/api/quickstart/php ) once installed follow their guide to set up your client to get authenticated.

    //$client will be your Google_Client authentication, for more info check the documentation link above.

Use below code for doing merging of rows and columns

    $service = new Google_Service_Sheets($client);

    $spreadsheetId = '1jfUz2VMUUEt2s4BP2Ye';    //this is test spreadsheet it, use your spreadsheet id here

    $rangeinst = new Google_Service_Sheets_GridRange();
    $rangeinst->setSheetId(0);  //your sheet id
    $rangeinst->setStartRowIndex(1);    // row index from where to start
    $rangeinst->setEndRowIndex(11); //ending row upto which you want merging
    $rangeinst->setStartColumnIndex(0); //start of column index, first column has 0 index like row
    $rangeinst->setEndColumnIndex(4);   //end of column upto which you want merging
    $merge = new Google_Service_Sheets_MergeCellsRequest();
    $merge->setMergeType('MERGE_COLUMNS');  //merge type request
    $merge->setRange($rangeinst);

    $requestBody = new Google_Service_Sheets_Request();
    $requestBody->setMergeCells($merge);
    $requestBatchBody = new Google_Service_Sheets_BatchUpdateSpreadsheetRequest();
    $requestBatchBody->setRequests($requestBody);


    $response = $service->spreadsheets->batchUpdate($spreadsheetId, $requestBatchBody);
    echo "<pre>";
    print_r($response);