How to prevent Text Overflow in Excel

How to prevent Text Overflow in Excel

Text overflow can break the appearance of a spreadsheet as it can seem annoying with overflowing texts coming out of a cell. If you have a spreadsheet with this problem, you can fix the text overflow problem in Microsoft Excel so that it looks better and clean.

What is text overflow in Microsoft Excel

As the name defines it, if the text leaves a cell, it is called overflow of text. The default width of a cell may not always match the width of all text. The default width of an Excel cell is 8.43mm, which is minimal, and most people often have problems. At this point, the text is hidden by the cell on the right and it is not accessible for reading once you have finished editing.

Whichever version of Microsoft Office you are using, you can get the same problem in every Excel worksheet. This also happens with Excel Online. There are several ways to resolve this problem. However, you should know that each method allows you to increase the width of the entire column at a time. If there are ten cells in a column and you are trying to increase the width of the first cell, the same thing will be applied to the entire column – not just one cell.

How to stop or hide text overflow in Excel

To resolve the text overflow issue in Microsoft Excel, follow these suggestions –

  1. Manually increase the width of a column
  2. Use the automatic column width adjustment option
  3. Change the default width of a cell

To know the steps in detail, read on.

1]Manually increase the width of a column

Text overflow in Excel

This is probably the easiest way to get rid of this problem. Although this is an old-fashioned method, it works perfectly. It doesn’t matter if the width of a cell should be 10 mm or 100 mm, you can change it manually without any expert knowledge. First, open the spreadsheet and hover your mouse over the line that divided two columns. You should see a two-way arrow. Once you get this, click and hold your mouse and drag to the right side.

2]Use the automatic column width adjustment option

This is a handy option that allows you to automatically set the width of a column. It detects the maximum width of a cell and applies it to the entire column. You do not need to use the mouse movement method. The advantage of this tip is that you can increase the width of all the columns at once. To start, select all the columns to modify and click on the Format which should be visible in the menu Home tongue. After that click on the Automatic adjustment column width option.

The width should be changed immediately.

3]Change the default width of the cell / column

If you already know exactly the width you need, you can change the default width of the column. To do this, open the Format in Excel and select the Default width option. Now you have to choose a width.

By default, it must carry the millimeter unit, which is the default unit of Excel. If you changed it earlier, you should set the width accordingly.

I hope this simple tutorial will help you solve the text overflow problem in Microsoft Excel.


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