Wrapping Text

**joebell** · 09-13-2014, 04:35 PM

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This issue seems as if it should be simple but it just doesn't always work for me. I created a spreadsheet and formatted the column widths so that it appears nicely on an 11 x 17 sheet of paper when printed landscape. Because I didn't want to change the column widths (each column was created with a different width), I formatted the entire spreadsheet to wrap the text thinking the row height would change to fit the cell contents. Increasing the row height is acceptable, so I thought this would work well. In some cells the text wraps ... in other cells it does not wrap at all and in some situations it only wraps to a certain cell height. When I check the alignment tab for specific cells, the "wrap text" box is checked. I find myself manually increasing the row height when needed. Should I be formatting this in some specific order or is there possibly a problem with the row height settings? I am just using the row height default settings. Am I missing something? Thanks in advance for your help.

Joe

**mehmetcik** · 09-13-2014, 04:42 PM

Did you try Auto Row Height?

**joebell** · 09-13-2014, 05:10 PM

Yes, I tried auto row height and it even reduced the height of the row that I had to manually heighten. When I used auto row height it made less of the text visible. Thanks for the suggestion.

**shg** · 09-13-2014, 05:39 PM

Excel won't autofit the row height of merged cells.

**joebell** · 09-13-2014, 06:09 PM

Thanks for the thought. I have merged cells in the spreadsheet (Row 1 columns A thru M) but that is not one of the cells I am trying to wrap the text. I just thought of something ... I formatted the spreadsheet as a table style to get the highlighting to appear in every other row. Could that be a problem?

**newdoverman** · 09-13-2014, 06:52 PM

If you want the Auto row height to work properly, format the worksheet or working area with the column width that you want and select the range that you are going to be working in (perhaps the whole worksheet) and click on Format, Auto Fit Row Height.

When you enter text, the row height will not adjust and word wrap will not take effect until you hit enter. If required, the row height will be adjusted.

If you have merged cells, that will kill the Auto Fit Row Height as will any manual formatting of the row height. If you have manually formatted row height, and want it back, you will have to reformat the row with Auto Fit Row Height to have it work again.

**joebell** · 09-13-2014, 08:12 PM

Everyone is being so helpful, but I am still experiencing the problem. So, I am attaching the spreadsheet (I removed the personal data) and entered some wording in various cells. As you will see, some cells wrap everything and other cells only wrap a part of what was entered. Usually there are only a few last words missing. I must have done something wrong when creating the spreadsheet to cause this problem. Thanks again for trying to help me with this one.

**newdoverman** · 09-13-2014, 10:02 PM

I selected the entire worksheet by clicking on the square above the Row Numbers and to the Left of the Column Headers. I then clicked on Format, Auto Fit Row Height and all cells expanded in height as they should.

**joebell** · 09-14-2014, 09:06 AM

This is interesting ... I tried your suggestion with the same spreadsheet I sent you and it did not work. I know I tried that previously also. But, when I opened the spreadsheet you sent back, it worked perfectly. So, I copied all of my information from my original spreadsheet and pasted it into the one you sent back and it worked. I did a "save as" with my original spreadsheet name and everything is working. I wish I knew what the difference was between how you did it and how I tried, but the bottom line is that everything is working. Thanks for your help Ron! I appreciate it.