How to write multi lines in one Excel cell?

Question

I want to write multi-lines in one MS Excel cell.

But whenever I press the Enter key, the cell editing ends and the cursor moves to next cell. How can I avoid this?

Answer 1

What you want to do is to wrap the text in the current cell. You can do this manually by pressing Alt + Enter every time you want a new line

Or, you can set this as the default behaviour by pressing the Wrap Text in the Home tab on the Ribbon. Now, whenever you hit enter, it will automatically wrap the text onto a new line rather than a new cell.

Answer 2

1. Edit a cell and type what you want on the first "row"
2. Press one of the following, depending on your OS:

   
   Windows: Alt + Enter

   Mac: Ctrl + Option + Enter

3. Type what you want on the next "row" in the same cell
4. Repeat as needed.

Note that inserting carriage returns with the key combinations above produces different behavior than turning on Wrap Text. In the screenshot below, column A has the carriage returns and column B has Wrap Text turned on. Changing the width of a column with carriage returns doesn't remove them. Changing the width of a column with Wrap Text turned on will change where the lines break.

Answer 3

You have to use Alt+Enter to enter a carriage return inside a cell.

Answer 4

Use the combination alt+enter

Answer 5

Alt + Enter never worked for me. I had to go to Format Cells and make sure that the Number tab was set to Text. That allowed me to see exactly as I had input. My issue could have been Mac specific though.