Thursday, May 13, 2010

Alt-Enter : Excels new-line command within a single cell

I consider myself an Excel student. I've studied, I've learned, I've mastered. I've never, ever, met an excel problem I could not master. Sure, sometimes it takes hours, days - even weeks and sometimes lots more, but in the end, I find the way to do it and I do it.

For many years now, I've believe there was no way to do a 'new-line' within a single cell of Excel. In fact, just a few days ago my wife called asking me how to do it. My answer? Combine all the other columns into 2 cells and leave the one column as two different rows. Yes, I really did think that was the only way to do it.

Even at work, I've been working on a reporting function that is to be run through Excel for formatting and data extraction purposes, and there were times I needed to do a new-line within a single cell. My answer? Same as above. It was a mess and I hated doing it, but it worked and I believed there was no other way.

Those days are now behind me - forever. This new command: 'Alt-Enter' has now become melded to my brain - bonded with my knowledge, forever to know that if you want to make a new-line within a single cell of Excel, simply use 'Alt-Enter'.

I can't even begin to express my excitment to know, now, how to do this. Me and 'Alt-Enter' are now very, very good friends.

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