When you have a long sentence or text string in a cell in Google Sheets, you will find that it overflows to the adjacent cells on the right (something as shown below). This is the main reason you may want to learn how to wrap text in Google Sheets.
This is often the case when you’re entering sentences or address in the cells.
The right way would be to wrap the text in the cells so that it doesn’t overflow to other cells (something as shown below).
Wrapping is one method of how to make text fit in Google Sheets. The other is clipping. To wrap text, Google Sheets has a few tricks. Let’s take a look at them.
How To Wrap Text in Google Sheets (Automatically)
Text wrapping in Google Sheets is actually quite easy. Below are the steps to the two methods to wrap text in Google Sheets:
Wrapping Text In Google Sheets With the Format Menu
- Select the cells that you want to wrap
- Click the Format option in the menu
- Hover the cursor on the Text Wrapping option.
- Click on Wrap
The above steps would instantly wrap the text in the selected cells in Google Sheets.
How To Wrap Text in Google Sheets With the Toolbar
The Google Sheets word wrap “Wrap Text” option is also available in the toolbar (which is just below the menu options).
To wrap text from the toolbar, select the cells that you want to wrap and then click on the wrap text icon (it’s one of the three available options when you click on the Text Wrapping icon).
Google Sheets How To Make Text Stay in Cell – How Does it Choose?
This is determined by the width of the columns.
When text wrap is enabled, Google Sheets try to fit the content of the cell in the same cell based on the column width. So, if your column width is enough to fit all the text in one single line, Google Sheets will do that.
But if your column width is less, it will fit the content of the cell so that the text doesn’t overflow and remains within the same cell (by splitting it into multiple lines in the same cell).
When the text is wrapped, Google Sheets will automatically adjust the height of the cell to fit the content.
There is another option you can consider using when you don’t want the text to overflow CLIP.
The ‘Clip’ option is available as one of the options under Text Wrapping and it clips the text so that it doesn’t overflow to the adjacent cells. This could be useful when you want to have the text but don’t want it to overflow and also don’t have the need to have the complete text visible. This can be the case with long URLs or even addresses.
Don’t worry, when you use the Clip option, it will not delete any text. It just hides any text that was earlier overflowing.
How To Text Wrap in Google Sheets Manually (Keyboard Shortcut)
In some cases, you may not want to wrap based on the column width, but instead, be able to specify where you need the text to be wrapped.
For example, in the below example, you may also want each part of the address (house/Street number, City and State, and Pin code) separately.
If you rely on Google Sheets inbuilt wrapping functionality, it will wrap based on column width. But you can also manually specify where you want the line to break.
Below are the steps to add Google Sheets text wrap line break manually:
- Select the cell in which you want to insert the line break and then press F2 (or double click on the cell). This will take you to edit mode where you can change the content of the cell.
- Bring the cursor to the place where you want to insert the line break
- Hold the ALT key and then press Enter (ALT + Enter)
The above steps would insert a line break and will make sure the sentences/text before and after line break are in separate lines.
Note that when you insert a line break in a cell, it would bring the text after the line break to the next line, even if you have not applied the text wrapping.
How to Wrap Text in the Google Sheets Mobile App
You can also wrap text on your mobile app. Here’s how:
- Tap the cell you’d like to format or entire columns or rows by selecting their letter or number
- Tap the A Formatting button
- Tap the Cell tab and scroll down until you get to Wrap text
- Click the button the turn Google Sheets text wrap on
Google Sheet Wrap Text FAQ
How Do You Wrap Text in Google Sheets?
The simplest way is to:
- Highlight the applicable cells
- Click the text wrap shortcut in the toolbar
What Is the Shortcut for Wrap Text in Google Sheets?
You just have to highlight the applicable cells and press ALT + Enter
Why Is Text Not Wrapping in Google Sheets?
Text wrapping is no longer automatic in Google Sheets. You likely have Clip or Overflow set as your default formatting. You can change it in the Format menu manually with the keyboard shortcut ALT +Enter.
Learn More About Google Sheets
Now that you know how to wrap text in Google Sheets, you may be interested in the following tutorials:
