by When you have a lot of text in your Excel cells it can be a good idea to show it on more than one line. But how? Every time you enter text into a cell it longs to be on one line however long it is.
Here is how you can insert more than one line into one cell on your Excel worksheet.
The detailed instructions to start a new line in a cell are provided: 3 ways to insert a line break in Excel.
5 steps to insert multiple lines into a cell
Say you have a column with full names in your table and want to get the first and last ones on different lines. With these simple steps you can control exactly where the line breaks will be.
- Click on the cell where you need to enter multiple lines of text.
- Type the first line.
- Press Alt + Enter to add another line to the cell.
Tip. Keep pressing Alt + Enter until the cursor is where you would like to type your next line of text.
- Type the next line of text you would like in the cell.
- Press Enter to finish up.
So just don't forget the Alt + Enter shortcut to get a line break at a specific point in a cell regardless of the cells width.
121 comments
Windows 11 have been upgraded on my system. I am trying to add next line in the same cell in an MS Excel, but it not working.
can you help me in this?
Hi! Windows update may not be a problem. Follow the recommendations in the article above carefully.
Thank you. Got it the first time!
How to I split the cell in half to include a line in between the text?
Hi! If I understand correctly, find the middle of the text string using LEN function and insert a CHAR(10) line break using REPLACE function.
=REPLACE(A1,LEN(A1)/2,0,CHAR(10))
Thanku for this informative message. It's very helpful for those who are working on Excel on the daily basis.
Seriously is a good one, I was helped with this post...
Thank you so much! the steps worked for me. It solved the problem I got in my data.
Hi, I have a Mac Pro and trying to (not sure) put cells within one cell. I don't have an Alt key, but it says to use the Options key, but that doesn't seem to work.
Thanks in advance!
Hi! To write multiple lines in a single cell on a Mac, use the OPTIONS+RETURN shortcut.
I am trying to put multiple hashtags/categories into one cell in a single row, in order to analyze the data based on each hashtag/category individually. I am putting the data into a Pivot Table, but I can't get excel to associate the data with each hashtag/category individually. For example:
Row 1: Post Date | Post Category | Post Hashtag 1, Post Hashtag 2, Post Hashtag 3 | Impressions | Engagement Rate
Row 2: Post Date | Post Category | Post Hashtag 2, Post Hashtag 3 | Impressions | Engagement Rate
Row 3: Post Date | Post Category | None | Impressions | Engagement Rate
I am trying to analyze which hashtags had the most impressions, but when I load into a pivot table it creates that categories like this:
- Post Hashtag 1, Post Hashtag 2, Post Hashtag 3
- Post Hashtag 2, Post Hashtag 3
- Post Hashtag 2, Post Hashtag 3
When I want this:
- Post Hashtag 1
- Post Hashtag 2
- Post Hashtag 3
- None
When a post has multiple hashtags, I want it to be included in each individual hashtag's data.
Help!
Hi! The pivot table works with the whole cell. It cannot select individual words from it. Separate the cell and work with individual hashtags. You may find these articles useful: Split string by delimiter or pattern, separate text and numbers and TEXTSPLIT function in Excel: split text strings by delimiter.
This did not work for me. When I pushed Alt and Enter, it just skipped to the next cell.
I have the same problem. Do you find your answer yet?
Press and hold ALT then press ENTER.
IT DIDNT STILL WORK
Use the left ALT key. Check which of your programs can intercept the ALT press.
use fn+alt+enter
I did that too. So on my computer if I just went ahead and typed on that next line in the cell below it and then did alt/enter it moved it back up to the cell I was working on.
This is useful for putting more than one entry in a cell, but how can I make Excel understand the separate lines as separate values for when I want to look at something like "Column Stats"? If I have a list of things, and I want to have a column for "Category," is it possible to make the items in the list have more than one category?
A Category
1 Blue Color
2 Apple Fruit
3 Orange Color, Fruit
4 Kiwi Fruit
When I do it like this with a comma or with a line break, the column stats return with:
Color: 1
Fruit: 2
Color, Fruit: 1
instead of...
Color: 2
Fruit: 3
Please help this is killing me.
Hi!
You may find this answer helpful. If this does not help, explain the problem in detail.