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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> MS Excel help, please (probably VERY simple)
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Showing posts 1 - 15 of 15, (reverse)
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 05/22/2013 01:35:52 AM · #1
I'd look it up myself, but I don't know what to ask for and browsing hasn't helped me.

When you paste something long (such as a URL) into a cell, I want it to automatically stop with the cell, and stay inside of it, NOT run into the cell(s) next to it.

In my example there are no merged cells - row one just runs over three cells.

I want it to look like row 2 by default without having to click on the others to make it "hide" in its own cell. Once upon a time it used to do that, but I don't know how to change it back.

Help please? I bet the answer is embarrassingly simple :-(

05/22/2013 01:40:57 AM · #2
Home --> Alignment --> Wrap Text.

Merge and Center for a cleaner look.

Message edited by author 2013-05-22 01:41:45.
 05/22/2013 01:43:48 AM · #3
Right click in the cell.
Then choose "format cell".
Go to "alignment"
Look around in there and you will see a "wrap text" box.
Click it.
 05/22/2013 01:52:45 AM · #4
Sorry, I guess I should have said I don't want to wrap it.

Once upon a time, it wasn't wrapped or merged, it just simply stopped (stopped being visible, that is) at the end of the cell.

May have been a previous version of Excel and now they've changed that?

Message edited by author 2013-05-22 02:00:28.
 05/22/2013 02:23:08 AM · #5
If you just want to truncate it at the next cell, just click on the adjacent cell and type something in, and specify the same color as the background for that cell.

Message edited by author 2013-05-22 02:27:22.
 05/22/2013 02:25:44 AM · #6
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
If you just want to truncate it at the next cell, just click on the adjacent cell and fill it with white.

"truncate" - beautiful word :-)

Yes, that is what I want it to do - but automatically, without having to touch its neighbours every time.
 05/22/2013 02:33:00 AM · #7
You could select all the blank cells at once if you don't want to go one by one.

1. Select your table
2. Go to (F5) Special... Blanks
Now all empty cells in your region should be selected.
3. Hit "space" once, then ctrl+enter to insert the space in all selected cells at once.

Ta Da all the blank cells are defending their blank nature, essentially they are now all filled with a single space..

Message edited by author 2013-05-22 02:34:58.
 05/22/2013 02:42:39 AM · #8
WOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AND YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!

I found the answer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And yes, it is super simple and exactly what I want:

Format Cells - Horizontal - FILL

That's it!

Thanks for trying, gents.
 05/22/2013 09:30:56 AM · #9
Originally posted by Beetle:
WOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AND YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!

I found the answer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And yes, it is super simple and exactly what I want:

Format Cells - Horizontal - FILL

That's it!

Thanks for trying, gents.


Good on you for figuring it out! The default behavior (displaying across multiple cells to the right) is actually done only if the cells to the right are empty. If you put a value (even a space character) in the cell, the text won't carry over into adjacent cells.
I didn't know about the Horizontal - Fill feature, so you've taught me something new today!
05/22/2013 11:00:40 AM · #10
Originally posted by Beetle:

Format Cells - Horizontal - FILL


Congrats, you found the "proper" solution to this! The behavior of Excel can be a little strange in this regard, as folks pointed out it will allow text to overrun the cell to the right... or left, if right-justified, or out both ends if centered(!!)
Forcing it to truncate the display by entering something invisible like a space character in the adjacent cell(s) is the kludgy work-around. Your solution is the one to use.
Most folks don't experiment with all of the formatting options, but they are potentially very powerful. For example, pretty much any formatting you can change, you can also change based on a condition. So if you wanted a cell background to change to red if a value exceeds a certain threshold, you can do that... and much, much more.
 05/22/2013 11:19:04 AM · #11
My biggest complaint about Excel is how MS has abdicated their duty to provide support/help to users and instead the "Help" now leads to what is basically a web search of user forums.
 05/22/2013 11:30:12 AM · #12
Weird. Try entering a single character and then doing that 'format/horizontal/fill' thing. What happens is that the character repeats until it fills the cell.

In fact, if you make the column wide enough, you'll see excel will attempt to repeat whatever text is in the cell to fill up the available width of the cell.
 05/22/2013 12:01:48 PM · #13
Originally posted by JH:
Weird. Try entering a single character and then doing that 'format/horizontal/fill' thing. What happens is that the character repeats until it fills the cell.

In fact, if you make the column wide enough, you'll see excel will attempt to repeat whatever text is in the cell to fill up the available width of the cell.


Up through at least Office 2010, this is correct, and AFAIK it is still one of only two ways to reliably keep text within a cell boundary without entering dat ain adjacent cells. The other way, for the record, is to check the "shrink to fit" box, which reduces the display font to fit the text. That's a really crazy one, the font size reported for the cell does not change, but the display font gets smaller and smaller the more text you add!
I have not checked Office 365 (Office 2013) to see if there is additional behavior available.
 05/22/2013 12:03:54 PM · #14
Originally posted by Spork99:
My biggest complaint about Excel is how MS has abdicated their duty to provide support/help to users and instead the "Help" now leads to what is basically a web search of user forums.


This is a real problem. It's not even so much that the internal help isn't there, it often is, but it is not prioritized in the display of results. For instance, you'd think typing a formula name should result in the internal description of that specific formula being the first hit. Often it is nowhere to be found. So Help is often very much less than helpful. Shameful, IMO.
 05/22/2013 12:11:43 PM · #15
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by Spork99:
My biggest complaint about Excel is how MS has abdicated their duty to provide support/help to users and instead the "Help" now leads to what is basically a web search of user forums.


This is a real problem. It's not even so much that the internal help isn't there, it often is, but it is not prioritized in the display of results. For instance, you'd think typing a formula name should result in the internal description of that specific formula being the first hit. Often it is nowhere to be found. So Help is often very much less than helpful. Shameful, IMO.


Worse than that, often the results are not filtered by version to exclude versions other than the one you're searching for help with. So, if a feature/command has changed, the help you get may be completely wrong.
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