Basic Excel: Text Wrapping In A Cell

By Author: Chris Le Roy
Total Articles: 95
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In Microsoft Excel 2003 you may have already noticed that when you type text into a Microsoft Excel cell and the text is greater than the size of the cell, the text will flow over to the next cell as long as there is no data in the following cell. If there is, the text or data in the next cell the cell simply stores the data and only shows what it can.

The way Microsoft Excel 2003 over comes this problem by wrapping text in the cell. However, this function is not automatically turned on by default after installation therefore you must manually turn it on. You will find that word wrap is handy for both label headings and for large blocks of text where you can not resize the column width but still need to put the same volume of text in the cell.

The process for applying text wrapping to a Microsoft Excel cell is quite simple, first select the Excel cells you want to apply text wrapping to and then choose the Format menu and from the drop down menu select the Cells command. At this point, the Format Cells dialogue box will be visible.

The next step is to select the Alignment tab in the dialog box above ...
... and then select the Wrap Text check box.

When the Wrap text function is turned on in a cell it is possible to enter multiple paragraphs into the cell. To do this simply press the Alt + Enter command When you action this function you will enter a new line that will allow you then to start the new paragraph.

It should also be noted that you could apply a different Text Alignment to the cell. Remember that you can left, right or centre align the text in the cell by choosing the drop down arrow next to the Horizontal Text alignment box.