So what is wrapping text in Excel, it is a process of fitting text within a cell. Excel is majorly used to manage, analyze & visualize data in form of numbers, but often we store text too.
This text sometimes is too long in character length that it overflows out of the cell and we have to adjust the column width to display the text properly.

Now instead of always adjusting the column width, we can in a way automate this process by wrapping text in Excel. We’ll cover excel text wrap feature, shortcut for wrap text in excel and much more.

Excel Text Wrap Example

Let’s check out an example to see how wrapped and unwrapped text looks like in Excel.

1. You can see, when the text is unwrapped the text overflows from cell A1 to adjacent cells.
   
   
   
2. In case the adjacent cell also has some text, the text in A1 won’t overflow.
   

Once we wrap text in excel, the text would look like this:

The text would be displayed in that particular cell only and excel will automatically adjust the row height so that the text is easier to read. Now you can see the benefit of wrapping text in excel.

How do you wrap text in Excel

1. Select the cell containing the text. Under Home tab, select Wrap Text under Alignment.
   
   
   
2. Now you can see excel word wrap. The text is now adjusted in such a way that it doesn’t extend the cell boundaries and is easier to read.
   

Do note that, although we have wrapped the text it might not look the best aesthetically and you might still have to manually adjust the column-row width/height to make the sheet more visually appealing.

Another way to wrap text quickly is by using CTRL+1. This will open Format Cells dialog box where you can select Wrap Text under Alignment tab.

Excel Wrap Text Shortcut

First select the cells to be text wrapped, then use the shortcut ALT+H+W.
Done this will wrap the text in the selected cell.

Unwrap text in Excel

1. Select the cell which is wrapped. Under Home tab, de-select Wrap Text option. Or use CRTL+1 to uncheck Wrap Text checkbox in Format Cells dialog box.
   
   
   
2. Now you can we stopped excel text wrap and the text is back to its original form.
   
   
   

Insert line break in Excel

Wrapping text in excel, comes with its own challenges. When you have multiple lines of text, it may look cluttered and unreadable.
To make the text more visual & aesthetic we can add line breaks within the text to make it more readable.

1. Select the cell and double click to enter edit mode.
   
   
   
2. Go to that part where you want to add a line break. Press ALT+ENTER. This will add a line break in excel.
   

Remember if you turn off the Excel Text Wrap feature the line breaks would be gone and the text will return back to its original form.

Excel wrap text not working

1. Wide Cell Width: If the text is small enough to fit the column’s width then after wrapping the text there would be no visual change.
   
   
   
2. Merged Cells: You cannot wrap text in merged cells. To wrap text you’ll have to unmerge the cells otherwise you should increase the column width of the merged cell.
   To unmerge cells under Home tab select Merge & Center.
   
   
   
3. Row Height: After wrapping text if it’s still not visible then it might be possible that the row height has been set to a certain height. We’ll need to Autofit the row height.
   Under Home tab select Format option and choose AutoFit Row Height from dropdown.
   
   In case you want to manually set row height, select the Row Height option.
   
   

Conclusion

We hope you liked our tutorial on what is text wrapping in excel, how to wrap text in excel and how in general wrapping text in excel works.

In case you have any tips, questions or comments- do add them in the comment section below.