When working with Excel worksheets in manipulating and storing text entries, at times you may want a certain part of your text to start within a new line. To do this, you may need to enter within a text. In contrast to other Office applications, to do this in excel you need to use a specific process. Only pressing the Enter key will complete your current entry and move your cursor to a new cell.
So, how do you enter within a text in excel? Let's look at the different ways to achieve this.
How to start a new line of text inside a cell in Excel
It is easier to start a new line of text or even add spaces between paragraphs and lines in your excel worksheet. You can even add or insert a line break within your text by pressing the Alt + Enter keys. Here is what to do;
1. In your windows computer, open the worksheet that you want to work with.
2. Double click in the cell you want to insert a line break.
3. Click on the location where you want to break the line within your text.
4. Press the Alt + Enter keys to insert the line break. Here, you will hold the Alt key while pressing Enter.
In case you are accessing excel via Mac, you will follow the steps above but use the key combinations Ctrl + Option + Return to insert a new line break. You will hold the Ctrl and Option keys while pressing the Return key. Lastly, press on the Enter key to finish up and exit the edit mode.
After doing this, as a result, you will get multiple lines in your Excel cells. If your results show that the text is still in one line, make sure you turn on your wrap text feature to have the line break.
How to add a line break to a combined text
You can add a line break between combined texts by using the Excel CHAR function with 10 as its argument. The method is the same as the one for pressing the Alt and Enter keys. For this to work, be sure to format your cell with the combined text using wrap text.
1. Select the cell that contains your combined text.
2. Type an equal sign before starting your formula on a new cell
3. Click on the first cell
4. Next, type in the & operator
5. Type your CHAR function. That is CHAR(10)
6. Next, type the '&' operator again.
7. Click on your second cell.
8. Press the Enter key to complete your formula. (Now your two texts have been combined)
9. Lastly, format your cell with Wrap Text.
10. To access the Wrap Text feature, go to the main ribbon and click on the Home tab. under the Alignment group, click on the option Wrap Text to enable the function.
Now all your selected cells will have the auto line break. The break will be based on the column width. Note, in some instances, you may need to adjust your cell width manually.
