To start a new line in a cell, press the
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If you have long text to enter in an Excel cell or just require pushing text to next lines for clarity or for any other reasons, you may add a new line easily. Show
In this tutorial, I will show you ways of adding a new line in Excel cells. The example of new line in a cell (Windows)While entering the text in a cell and you want next words/characters in the new line then use this short key before writing the new words you want in the next line:
The demo below shows adding a line as I am typing a word. After the word “With” the “Alt + Enter” keys are pressed and we are writing into next line.  Pro tip: As you press Alt + Enter, the Wrap Text button under the “Home” tab in the ribbon, “Alignment” group should be enabled/pressed. If it does not, make sure you press this button: Insert new line in Mac OSThe short key for adding a new line in the Mac OS is:
So, follow these steps in the Excel for Mac:
For existing text in new line (Windows)If you want to add a line in existing text, double click in the cell and single click in the area or character from where you want the new line added. Then press Alt + Enter as shown in the interactive graphic below. In the above demo, we have pre-written text in the cell. I just double-clicked after the word “With “ and press Alt + Enter to move the next words to the next line. For Mac users, press the CONTROL + OPTION + RETURN. The auto wrap optionIf you require new lines added automatically as the text in the cell exceeds the width then you may use the Wrap Text option. For that, you may select a cell, column etc. and press the Wrap Text button under the Alignment group in Home tab. You may read about this option with screenshots in its tutorial here: Excel wrap text Updated: 12/31/2020 by It is possible to start a newline in a cell in nearly all spreadsheet programs. However, there's more to it than pressing
Enter and varies a bit depending on the software you are using. The following sections detail how to start a new line in a cell in several of the different spreadsheet programs available to users. To proceed, locate the spreadsheet program you want instructions for and follow the directions. In the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program, press
Alt+Enter to create a new line in the same cell. You can create many new lines in a cell by repeatedly pressing Alt+Enter. For early versions of Excel, Apple computers, and other devices using Excel, see the link below for further information and help with moving down a line in Excel. In Google Sheets, press Ctrl+Enter to create a new line in the same cell. You can create many new lines in a cell by repeatedly
pressing Ctrl+Enter. In the OpenOffice Calc spreadsheet program, press Ctrl+Enter to create a new line in the same cell. You can create many new lines in a cell by repeatedly pressing Ctrl+Enter.
How to “Enter” in Excel: Start a New Line in a Cell (+Shortcut)Written by co-founder Kasper Langmann, Microsoft Office Specialist. Have you tried pressing ‘Enter’ to start a new line and got disappointed? Relax, your Excel isn’t broken. 😊 Unlike text editors, you can’t start a new line in Excel just by pressing ‘Enter’. In Excel, pressing ‘Enter’ moves the cursor to the next cell.
Get your FREE exercise fileBefore you start: Throughout this guide, you need a data set to practice. I’ve included one for you (for free). Download it right below! Download the FREE Exercise File How to get a line break in ExcelStarting a new line in a cell is easy. Let’s say you have this sentence: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. Now, you want to break the tongue twister above into two separate lines: (1) Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. (2) A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. When in Excel, pressing ‘Enter’ (in the cell or in the formula bar) like how you would in Microsoft Word would only move the cursor to the next cell: To start a new line, double-click the cell which contains the text. Then, click the place where you want to insert a line break.
In our example, the location would be between the dot (.) of the first sentence and the first letter of the second sentence:
Finally, enter a new line by pressing ‘Alt’ + ‘Enter’ on Windows or ‘Ctrl’ + ‘Option’ + ‘Return’ if you’re using Mac. Adding multiple line breaksThere’s no limit to how many line breaks you can add in a single cell. Suppose you have this sentence: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers? Now, you’d like to break it into three lines: (1) Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Here’s how to put multiple lines in an Excel cell: Line breaks with CONCATENATEThe ‘CONCATENATE’ function is one of Excel’s text-combining functions. This is usually done by using any of these two methods:
Let’s say you want to combine these phrases into one:
This will give you: The first line and The second line However, what you wanted is to combine both these phrases into a cell with a line break: (1) The first line and (2) The second line To add a line break, you have to enable ‘Wrap Text’ first for that cell. Then, add a ‘CHAR(10)’ in the formula if you’re on Windows or ‘CHAR(13)’ if you’re using Mac. The formula will then look like this: =A12 & CHAR(10) & A13 Press ‘Enter’ and you’ll see the added line break: Wrapping things up…Adding a new line in Excel is different than in text editors. But it doesn’t differ that much since you only needed to add an extra key.
How do you insert a new line in an Excel cell?To insert a single row: Right-click the whole row above which you want to insert the new row, and then select Insert Rows. To insert multiple rows: Select the same number of rows above which you want to add new ones. Right-click the selection, and then select Insert Rows.
How do I start a new line in an Excel cell Mac?To start a new line in an Excel cell, you can use the following keyboard shortcut: For Windows – ALT + Enter. For Mac – Control + Option + Enter.
How do you draw a line in a cell?To add a line that is not connected to other objects, follow these steps. On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click Shapes. Under Lines, click any line style you like. Click one location in the document, hold and drag your pointer to a different location, and then release the mouse button.
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