Excel 2007 : Stopping text overlapping next column

**MarvinP** · 06-12-2011, 02:23 PM

Hi AdrianVW and welcome to the forum,

I've had the same problem and this is the way Excel works. If there is nothing in the cell to the right of a long text string, the string will display through that blank cell.

My solution is to go to the cell to the right of the long text string and type in a space. This will make the long string not overwrite the cell as it is no longer blank. AutoFill or drag this cell with a space in it, down the column for all cells and see if this works for you.

If this isn't what you need, discribe what are other concerns.

**Haseeb Avarakkan** · 06-12-2011, 02:55 PM

Hello AdrianVW,

Select the range, go to,

Format Cell >> Alignment,

In the Horizontal drop down, select Fill

**Stosh** · 09-01-2013, 09:44 PM

That doesn't really work, because it does cause Excel to "fill" the cells. For example, if I have a single "X" in a cell, following your instructions changes that to the number of "X"s needed to fill the cell. For example, if my cell can have 4 characters, "X" becomes "XXXX".

**Stosh** · 09-01-2013, 09:46 PM

That works, but if I have a large spreadsheet that I added a column to, I don't want to go through hundreds of cells individually to add a space in each one. Is there a way to automate this, or to prevent the overlapping outright?

**umair_the_qa_tester** · 09-24-2017, 08:47 AM

Wrapping text on Google Docs:
Wrap:
to wrap the text in a cell just click on Format > Text Wrapping > Wrap (this will fit all your text in one cell and will increase the size of the cell to display the complete text)

Clip
to wrap the text in a cell but doesn't want to change the size of the cell Format > Text Wrapping > Clip