Wrap Text in Excel (Table of Contents)
Wrap Text in Excel
Excel has a character limit of 32,767 characters, it means Excel allows you to enter up to 32,767 text or numeric characters in each cell. All of these 32,767 characters will show up or displayed in the Formula bar, but it may not be visible in a cell due to display limitation.
Limitation in excel cell is that it will display only the first 1,024 characters in each cell. if it goes beyond, it is displayed as **
Sometimes you can notice or you would have come across the below mentioned scenarios i.e.,
- When you enter lengthy text in a cell, i.e. a long single line text which is longer than the width of the cell.
or
- Already existing long lengthy text string in a cell, which exceeds the width of the cell.
or
- A Cell is not a merged cell, but Cell containing a lengthy text string,
The above scenarios in excel cell appear as mentioned below:
- Longer text string overwriting empty adjacent cells
If the adjacent column cell to the right is empty, a long text data string extends over the cell border into those columns.
- Longer text string cut off due to the presence of text in an adjacent cell.
If adjacent column cell to the right, contains any text or numeric data, then the text string will be cut off at the cell border.
This large amount of text needs to be stored in spreadsheets and should fit in a cell.
As we can rectify above two situations, either by just making the column wider at the border of the cell, where you can adjust manually or by doing just double click at the column border to automatically expand the column to fit the long text.
Both these options don’t work out when you have a huge number of columns & it’s text data to display.
It is possible to manually or automatically wrap the text (Explained in examples). It is a better option to wrap the text in the cells that have more text content.
Definition
Wrap Text is a feature in excel spreadsheet that wraps or fits the text contents within a cell.
It auto-sizes the row height and column width when you paste text into Excel
It wraps or fits the cell contents on multiple lines, rather than single or one long line without overlapping the text content to another adjacent cell.
Excel provides a “Wrap Text” option in the Alignment group, on the Home tab of the ribbon. This button or option helps you out to toggle text wrapping on and off.
The appearance of wrapped text in Excel cell.
Advantage of text wrapping
- It makes easier to read the full-text contents in a cell.
- It will better fit and easy to take a printout.
- In the entire excel worksheet, if you wrap text, column width will be consistent and have a better display or appearance.
How to Wrap Text in Excel?
Let’s check out the various available options to WRAP text in excel.
Example #1
Automatic wrap text within a cell in the spreadsheet
This method of wrapping text in excel is a very easy process and it can be done in a faster way.
In the below mentioned example, I have a long text in the cell B5 & B8 cell, suppose I want to wrap text in the cell “B8”
First step is to Select cell “B8”, once you select the cell, you can observe black color at borders
Now, select the “Wrap Text” option in the Alignment group, in the Home tab of the Excel ribbon.
Now, you can observe the contents of the cell “B8”, is wrapped to fit the cell.
Note:
- If you have initially set row height to any number or manually set a row height or
- Adjusted column width by clicking on the right bottom border of a row header and dragging the separator towards left or right.
If you have used above two option before doing wrap text, you will not observe any change in the row height or column width when you click the Wrap Text button
If accidentally any changes are seen, then simply double click the bottom border of a row header to fix this.
Example #2
Wrap text within a cell in the spreadsheet with “format cells” option
The first step is to select a cell or group of cells which you want to wrap the text content.
In the below mentioned example, I have a lengthy text in the cell B5 & B8 cell, suppose I want to wrap text in the cell “B8”
Select a cell “B8”, once you select a cell, you can observe black color at borders.
Now, Right-click on the selected cell and go to Format cells.
Or select the font arrow dropdown option in the font group, on the Home tab of the Excel ribbon.
Once you have selected a cell which you need to wrap, you can Press Ctrl + 1 to open the Format Cells dialog
In the Format Cells dialog box, select alignment subtab, in that select the Wrap Text check box and click OK.
Now, you can observe the text contents of the cell “B8”, which is wrapped to fit in the cell.
When compared to the first method, this one may take extra time & might take a couple of extra clicks, but at a single shot, it will help you out to make other changes in cell formatting with various options in format cells window.
Things to Remember About the Wrap Text in Excel
- If the text is wrapped and you want to unwrap it, select the cell or group of cells which needs to be unwrapped.
- Now, again you have to select the “Wrap Text” option in the Alignment group, on the Home tab of the Excel ribbon.
- Sometimes, the wrapped text will not be visible, due to fixed row height you would have done in prior, this can be rectified by clicking on autofit options. i.e. selecting the “format” option in the cells section, on the Home tab of the Excel ribbon. Cell size drop down appears, in that select AUTOFIT ROW HEIGHT
- Wrap Text option in excel is not applicable for merged cells.
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