It is a little-known feature that you can automatically break the text in an Excel Textbox into multiple columns. This episode shows you how to find the setting.
Transcript of the video:
Learn Excel from MrExcel Podcast episode 2459 - a textbox with many columns.
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen, an easy one today, but something that's hard to find. I need a text box down here with a set of steps so I'm going to go to insert shapes, choose text box and draw the text box down here.
Now this is really wide, not that tall.
And when I paste in the data that I need down here, it's just far too much data to fit in that short little text box.
But there's a way to change this text box to have multiple columns.
By the way, I always change the color of my text box to something light.
Yeah, let's go with light green like that.
OK, so we have the text box selected.
I press control one to open the Format Shape panel over here.
There's a lot of different options.
We go to text options.
And then there's three icons here.
The third icon is called Textbox.
And then all the way down at the bottom is Columns.
And I can crank this up to maybe four or five columns with a tiny bit of space in between, like 0.1 inches.
Let's try that.
See how that looks.
So then down here you see, I have basically snaked that data into four columns.
If I get rid of the format shape panel, it all fits perfectly.
Like I said, an easy one today, but super useful if you need a lot of data in a wide but short area.
Check out my new courses on the Retrieve platform – an amazing artificial intelligence.
Type what you're looking for.
It'll take you right to that spot in the video, or you can read the transcript in many languages.
If you like these videos, please, down below, Like, Subscribe and Ring the Bell.
Feel free to post any questions or comments down in the comments below.
Alright I wanna thank you for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Let's hear you, Nancy.
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen, an easy one today, but something that's hard to find. I need a text box down here with a set of steps so I'm going to go to insert shapes, choose text box and draw the text box down here.
Now this is really wide, not that tall.
And when I paste in the data that I need down here, it's just far too much data to fit in that short little text box.
But there's a way to change this text box to have multiple columns.
By the way, I always change the color of my text box to something light.
Yeah, let's go with light green like that.
OK, so we have the text box selected.
I press control one to open the Format Shape panel over here.
There's a lot of different options.
We go to text options.
And then there's three icons here.
The third icon is called Textbox.
And then all the way down at the bottom is Columns.
And I can crank this up to maybe four or five columns with a tiny bit of space in between, like 0.1 inches.
Let's try that.
See how that looks.
So then down here you see, I have basically snaked that data into four columns.
If I get rid of the format shape panel, it all fits perfectly.
Like I said, an easy one today, but super useful if you need a lot of data in a wide but short area.
Check out my new courses on the Retrieve platform – an amazing artificial intelligence.
Type what you're looking for.
It'll take you right to that spot in the video, or you can read the transcript in many languages.
If you like these videos, please, down below, Like, Subscribe and Ring the Bell.
Feel free to post any questions or comments down in the comments below.
Alright I wanna thank you for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Let's hear you, Nancy.
