Excel is an incredibly effective tool if you know how to use it well. Although it has many automation features, you still have to adjust some settings and layouts manually.
Wrapping and wrapping text are perfect examples. Your Excel data won’t look as clean as you need it to if text keeps sticking out of cells.
Fortunately, there are several ways to arrange your sheet and make text fit in a cell in Excel.
Make text to fill a cell – Excel
The most common method to make text fit correctly in each cell is to use the text wrap option. Here’s how to use it:
- Select the cells that contain the text you want to wrap on your sheet.

- Gonna “Home” and click “Adjust text” within the Alignment group. You can also do this by simultaneously pressing the button “Alt + H + W” buttons. Please note that hotkeys do not apply to Mac devices.

If you follow the steps above, your text will wrap to the width of the cell. If you change the width of the entire column, the text will change with it.
If you can’t see some of the text, the row height may not allow it. In this case, you will need to adjust the size so that all of the wrapped text is visible. That is how:
- Select the cells for which you are adjusting the row height.

- Gonna “Home” and click “Format” within the Cells group.

- Press “Cell size” and click “Auto Adjust Row Height” to automatically adjust the height. If you want to do it manually, go to “Row height” and type the values you want to expand the rows to in the appropriate box.

You can also expand its height by dragging the bottom edge of the row if you’re not looking for specific row proportions.
Use Reduce to Fit
If you don’t want the cells to fit your text but vice versa, you can use the “Shrink to Fit” option. These are the steps you must follow:
- Select your data set and then right click on it.

- Gonna “Cell format.” You can also use “Control + 1” to open the menu.

- Click on the “Alignment”and then check the box next to “Reduce to fit.”

- Press “OK” to confirm your choice.

You will notice that the text is now smaller to fit the size of the cell. This option is not ideal for longer text and the shortened version may become virtually invisible, depending on the cell size. Still, it is a suitable option for smaller cells that contain a couple of words.
Adjust cell size using keyboard shortcuts
Excel has a large number of shortcuts that make navigation and commands more convenient, including resizing cells to fit the amount of text.
Adjusting the height and width of the cell is very simple and requires only a few steps. To adjust the width, do the following:
- Select the column you want to expand.

- press the “Alt + H + O + I” shortcut.

The width will automatically adjust to fit the longest line of text. If you also need to increase the height, simply follow these steps:
- Select the rows you want to expand.

- Use the keyboard shortcut “Alt+H+O+A”.

The height of the cells will increase and you will see all the text they contain.
Make your data visible
As you can see, you can make text fit in a cell in Excel with just a few clicks. Doing so will make your data much more attractive and easily digestible. Once you get used to these shortcuts, resizing cells won’t take you any time.
Do you have any other methods to wrap text inside Excel cells? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments p.