Enter multiple lines in a single Excel cell

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. Enter more than one line in a single Excel cell.

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.

  1. Click on the cell where you need to enter multiple lines of text.
  2. Type the first line.
  3. 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.

  4. Type the next line of text you would like in the cell.
  5. 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.

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121 comments

  1. Thank you! Never knew it was so simple. Clear and easy to follow

  2. thank you.

  3. Thank you!!

  4. thanks..it worked..

  5. Thank you!

  6. When I press Alt+Enter and go to the next line, my text in the next line does not appear after pressing enter. Please help me out

    • Please increase that column/row size.

    • Believe it or not, I had to use the OTHER Alt key on my keyboard. Not sure why this is. (I found this tip after a whole bunch of searching!)

  7. Hello, I have a long text in a cell. This text needs to be in less than 4 line break. And each line can only have a maximum of 60 letter or characters. Thanks for your help!

  8. Thank you

  9. help
    for instance i have
    60% and i still want 30%,40%,70% to be below 60% as in 60% will cover all the other numbers
    pls how can i do it

  10. Thank you so very much.

  11. Thanks SO much for the great and helpful info!

  12. Example :
    143
    550
    350
    440

  13. I have entered number after using Alt+Enter in to one cell, now i need total of that cell, how I will get total pls help me.
    example. 143 550 350 440 all numbers are entered in to one cell using alt+enter now not able to get single cell total.

  14. Alt+Enter worked for me once, then not again, what I am now doing wrong.
    Thanks

  15. Many Thanks

  16. at first type what ever you want then goto home manu and click on wrap-text icon

    • Best answer for text already in cell. Thank you!

  17. I want to put text from 3 references into a single cell with multiple lines. I tried:
    =a1&(alt enter)
    b1&(alt enter)
    c1

    But this always comes out on the same line of the cell. Can I make it come out on 3 lines of the same cell?

    • Hello,

      If I understand your task correctly, please try the following formula:

      =A1 & CHAR(10) & B1 & CHAR(10) & C1

      When using line breaks to separate the concatenated values, you must have the “Wrap text” option enabled for the result to display correctly. To do this, press Ctrl + 1 to open the Format Cells dialog, switch to the Alignment tab and check the Wrap text box.

      Hope it will help you.

      • AMAZING! Thank you so MUCH!!! Just saved me hours of work

  18. thanx alt plus enter also worked for me

  19. Thanks, alt + Enter worked for me, but how do i make the two different numbers sits at opposite ends?

    • Hello Joshua,
      I'm afraid it is not possible to use different alignments within one cell. One possible workaround would be using different columns for values that you'd like to align differently.

  20. how to combine the multiple line of a single cell in excel
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