Merging table column into single cell

Answer 1

add a rowspan="2" to the second td of the first row and remove the second td from the second row.

Answer 2

<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
 <td>row 1 column 1</td>
 <td rowspan="2">row 1 column 2</td>
 <td>row 1 column 3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>row 2 column 1</td>
 <td>row 2 column 3</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

This should work. Any element with rowspan="2" will span two rows. you can also put colspan="2" to span columns.