Merge cells

In Windowsyou can merge cells in both spreadsheets and tables. With Mac you can only do it in tables it seems. For me, as a teacher producing timetables and so on that's a bit of a fag. I don't always want to work in tables inside a AppleWorks word processing file. In truth this is the most limiting factor I have found when using my Mac. Does anyone know of a software upgrade that would allow me to get round this problem and merge cells inside spreadsheets?

On the subject of airports I reckon its the way to go but I'm told that the radio waves don't penetrate walls very well if there is metal in it (as with apartments where the building materials are ususally reinforced concrete). For bricks and mortar I guess it is better.