Adjusting Row Height for Your Text

It is fairly easy to put more text in a cell than can be readily displayed. While you can widen the column to fit your text, sometimes this is not a good (or viable) option. Instead, you can wrap the text within the cell, so that the cell height is increased to display all the text. Follow these steps:

1. Select the cells whose formatting you want to affect.
2. Choose Cells from the Format menu or, in Word 2007, press Ctrl+Shift+F. Excel displays the Format Cells dialog box.
3. Click on the Alignment tab. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Make sure the Wrap Text check box is selected.
5. Click on OK.

It is important to remember that your row height will only increase automatically if you haven't explicitly specified the row height. If the height doesn't expand to fit the contents of the cell, follow these steps, after doing the previous steps, if you are using a version of Excel prior to Excel 2007:

1. Select the row.
2. Choose Row from the Format menu. Excel displays a submenu.
3. Choose AutoFit from the submenu.

If you are using Excel 2007, then follow these steps instead:

1. Select the row.
2. Make sure the Home tab of the ribbon is displayed.
3. Within the Cells group, click Format. Excel displays a drop-down menu of choices.
4. Choose AutoFit Row Height from the menu.

The text should now be wrapped within the cell and all visible.