Limit Amount of Text Displayed to be the Same as the Column/Cell Width

[mattu1990]

Hi,

I'm trying to improve the visual appearance of a spreadsheet of data I have.

basically, I have cells of data in excess of 25,000+ characters per cell. In cell a1 the data is displayed across so far that you can't tell where cell B1's data starts etc, because they all overlap each other. I just want to make it look more tidy.

i think Excel displays the first 1000 characters or so. Is there a way to make Excel only display the data as wide as the actual column is? So you can distinguish the start of each column's data.

I don't want to remove or chop any of the data in any way. All of the characters display in the formula bar which is fine. If the characters displayed can be limited though I still need to be able to copy that cell of data and all of it be copied to the clipboard, not just the visible on screen text.

hope this makes sense,
thanks

 

[wigi]

Are you sure MS Excel is the right tool for this? 25,000+ characters...

If you put something in cell B1, you could "stop" cell A1.

 

[mattu1990]

Hi wigi,

Excel is fine for what I'm doing. The character limit goes over 37,000 as well which is ideal.

Doing a bit more research earlier and I have found what I'm looking for, which is.

Right Click the cells > Format Cells > Alignment tab > Horizontal drop down menu and change it from General to Fill.

That makes the content repeat if the cell is wide enough. In my case it's never wide enough so works great. The actual data always remains the same regardless of format which is ideal for me.

Regards,
Matt

 

[taylor1000]

hi matt
how do you go about limiting the amount of data in a cell - for eg i have in cell A2 information with over 80 characters and i want to trim it down to say 40. is there anyway this can be done so i can build a macro from it?

 

[wigi]

Hello taylor

Did you have a look at Data validation > Text length ?
If the text is already there in cell A2 and you would like to trim it down to 40, you will need to use a different cell. There, use the LEFT function.