# Merging columns across an opt-out option

**URL:** https://forum.surveyengine.com/t/merging-columns-across-an-opt-out-option/217
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** formatting
**Created:** [15 January 2025 11:28 UTC](https://forum.surveyengine.com/t/merging-columns-across-an-opt-out-option/217 "2025-01-15T11:28:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![ARRCproject](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@ARRCproject](https://forum.surveyengine.com/u/ARRCproject)
#### Post date: [15 January 2025 11:28 UTC](https://forum.surveyengine.com/t/merging-columns-across-an-opt-out-option/217/1 "2025-01-15T11:28:32Z")

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Hi everyone,

We have an experiment where we are offering an “opt-out” question in addition to two unlabeled alternatives. We followed the tutorial and were able to set that up.  
At the moment, the layout of the third alternative is simply empty cells for each attribute row. During the piloting of our experiment, we received feedback that it would be better if we merged the cells (row-wise) across this column and presented the opt-out text (currently appearing at the column header) centrally. This would be akin to the way “conjointly” platform does it, which we happen to have played with before trying SurveyEngine.

Our attempts so far at doing this have been unsuccessful. We tried removing the option’s respective tags from each of its rows in the Layout tab, but see that still leaves the row separators (see image below).

 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/uploads/surveyengine/original/1X/7fcb21fff1c567fe45b4e293bd3eadfb41082f4f.png)  
We also tried using “rowspan” in the tag of the first option, which seems to merge the cells as expected but also results in an additional column being formed (see image below)  
 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/uploads/surveyengine/original/1X/3a098ba9c1697b04ccc58c115dafec34907ecc26.png)

Would appreciate your guidance on this.

Many thanks and best wishes,  
Noam  
The ARRC project, University of Cambridge

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### Author: ![benno](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/forum.surveyengine.com/benno/32/3_2.png) [@benno](https://forum.surveyengine.com/u/benno)
#### Post date: [12 August 2025 13:09 UTC](https://forum.surveyengine.com/t/merging-columns-across-an-opt-out-option/217/2 "2025-08-12T13:09:08Z")

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There are two ways to do this.

1 - use the rowspan this should be the number of rows you want to span. So if you have 4 = then in the first table cell set rowspan = 4, not zero as you have. Secondly - you need to delete the cells that the rowspan will take up so if there are 4 - then delete the 3 cells underneath it.

1. Use Jquery + chatgpt. This does the same thing - the only problem is you can’t see the effect in preview.