Prevent Long Text from Spilling

September 04, 2023 - by Bill Jelen

Problem: I have a column with long comments. When the adjacent column is blank, the text from the comment spills over into the adjacent cell.

Column B has cells with Long Text. Column C is either blank or has a checkmark. When C is blank, the long text from B will spill and display in C. But when there is a checkmark in C, you can't see the end of the data in B. — Figure 1302. The long text spills over when C is blank.

Strategy: Ironically, the solution is to turn on Wrap Text in column B. This will not be what you are wanting to do, as each row will get really tall to accommodate the long comment.

Choose Home, Format, Row Height. Set everything back to 12.75.

Turn on Wrap Text in B. Set Row Height to 12.75, just enough for one line of text. — Figure 1303. After wrap text, set the row height back to 12.75.

The result will be normal height rows that will not spill into adjacent blank cells.

The settings in the previous figure prevent the words from spilling from column B to column C. — Figure 1304. The long text won’t spill after turning on wrap text.

This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel

Title photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash