How to Wrap Text in Excel (2026)
By default, long text either spills into the next cell or gets cut off. Wrap Text makes it flow onto multiple lines inside the same cell so everything stays readable. Here’s the button, manual breaks, and how to fix wrapping that won’t behave.
1. Turn On Wrap Text
- Select the cell or range.
- On the Home tab, click Wrap Text in the Alignment group.
The text wraps within the cell and the row grows taller to show all of it. Click the button again to turn wrapping off.
2. Control Where It Wraps
Wrapped text breaks based on column width — Excel chooses the break points to fit the column. To change where lines fall, widen or narrow the column by dragging its border. Narrower columns mean more lines.
3. Add a Manual Line Break
To force a break at an exact spot (like between address lines), put the cursor where you want it and press:
- Windows:
Alt + Enter - Mac:
Control + Option + Enter
This inserts a hard line break and turns on wrapping for that cell automatically.
4. Wrap From Format Cells
You can also toggle wrapping in the full dialog, alongside alignment options:
- Select the cells and press Ctrl+1 (Cmd+1 on Mac).
- On the Alignment tab, check Wrap text.
- Optionally set vertical alignment to Top so multi-line cells read cleanly.
- Click OK.
5. Fix the Row Height
If a wrapped cell looks cut off, the row height didn’t auto-adjust (common after manual resizing or merged cells):
- Double-click the bottom border of the row heading to auto-fit, or
- Home > Format > AutoFit Row Height.
6. Troubleshooting
Text won’t wrap
Wrap Text is off, or the row height is locked. Turn the button on and run AutoFit Row Height.
Wrapped text is hidden / cut off
The cell is in a merged range — wrapping and auto-fit don’t play well with merges. Unmerge the cells (see how to merge cells) and set the row height manually.
The whole row got taller than I want
One cell has a lot of text. Either widen its column so it needs fewer lines, or shorten the entry.
Mac and Web
Wrap Text is on the Home tab in Excel for Mac and Excel for the web too; the manual-break shortcut on Mac is Control+Option+Enter.
Related Excel guides: How to merge cells · How to concatenate · How to unhide columns · How to create a drop-down list · How to use conditional formatting
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