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How To Wrap Text In Excel

How To Wrap Text In Excel
Blog

How To Wrap Text In Excel

Occasionally, when working in Excel, you may enter a rather long string of data. Cells have a default setting to hold 8.43 characters within them, and anything over that will be cut off when data is entered in the cell to the right of it. So, do you have any idea what is wrap text in Spreadsheet?

As shown in Figure 1, the column headers “Service Code” and “Service Description” have been cut off, and the “Hourly Rate” is pouring over into Column D. To view a larger amount of data, you can adjust the column width or modify the default column width for the entire worksheet, but a more effective solution may be to wrap the text within the cell.

What is Wrap Text in Spreadsheet?

Wrapping the text means displaying the cell data on multiple lines within one cell. By wrapping the text, we make the data easier to read and navigated, and if printed, it will be well organized. Figure 2 shows the exact same data with the Wrap Text feature added to the cells.

Not only is the data easier to read, but it saves space. For example, the Service Code column width can now be narrowed to accommodate the data giving more room in the worksheet to widen Column B.

How To Wrap Text In Excel 1 (1)

How To Wrap Text In Excel 1 (2)

How to Wrap Text in Excel

The first method is choosing the Wrap Text button from the Home Tab in the Ribbon.

  1. Select the cells you wish to wrap; a single cell or multiple cells may be selected, or you can click the Select All button (highlighted) and wrap every cell within the worksheet.
  2. Click Wrap Text, and all data within the cells will be displayed on multiple lines.
How To Wrap Text In Excel 2
The Second Method is to Format the Cells
  1. Right-click the cell you wish to wrap
  2. Select Format Cells from the menu
  3. Click on the Alignment Tab
  4. Click the box that says Wrap Text
  5. Click OK.

The second method takes a bit longer if the only formatting you are completing is to wrap the text. However, if you were also merging cells, adding borders, changing the font, or formatting the numbers, it may be quicker to use the second method.

How To Wrap Text In Excel 3

Now, you got an idea of what is wrap text in spreadsheet and how you can do it. Let’s find out you can unwrap cells.

To Unwrap Cells

You follow the same steps as the two methods for wrapping the text. In the first method, you would once again highlight the wrapped cells and then click Wrap Text within the Home Tab on the Ribbon. The second method would be to right-click the cell you wish to unwrap and go back to the Alignment tab in the Format Cells box. Uncheck the checkbox next to WrapTextt.

If you have selected multiple cells and the Wrap Text box is solid versus having a checkmark, the cells you have selected are a combination of the wrapped text. Some cells are formatted to wrap Text while others are not. If this is the case, click the box once to wrap the text in all cells and click the box again to unwrap the text in all cells.

What is Wrap Text in Spreadsheet – Line Breaks and Text Wrapping

It’s worth bearing in mind that when you are using line breaks in a cell (this is when you want to write on the next line WITHIN a cell do this by pressing Alt + Enter to go to the next line), the text will by default wrap vertically, i.e., the cell will expand vertically.

But when you ‘unwrap,’ the cell will join the lines, and it won’t look pretty! So, here’s some text entered with a line break.

Now, if we unwrap this text, this happens.

The effect of unwrapping line broken text is to join (concatenate) it.

Relax, the world won’t end, but it’s worth bearing in mind if you create a lot of text in this manner and pass it off to others, they may struggle to read or print it.

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