How to use Autofit (columns and rows) in Excel
Posted on May 8, 2009
Filed Under MS Excel tips and tricks |
Periodically we get questions from customers and visitors regarding the use of various applications.
How to use Autofit to adjust Column widths…
There are several ways to use ‘Autofit’:
I am going to assume VB Script or programming will not be used, so the following methods do not utilize programming techniques.
To Autofit 1 column first method:
Once you have written the text in the cell of a column that you want to Autofit:
- Move your mouse to the top of the spreadsheet where the column headings are (A through ZZ etc.).
- Hover your mouse over the right side border line of the column you want to Autofit. Your cursor should change to a solid bar with a right and left arrow.
- Double click the borderline while your cursor is displayed as the solid bar with the arrows.
This will contract/expand the column to the min/max size of the text that has been entered.
Note: Method 1 above WILL NOT work if you have report headings in columns. The reason is: Report Headings tend to be wider then the data entered into cell elements or may have more then 1 cell merged together to make a single cell. Using method 1 will contract/expand the column to fit the Heading, not the data.
Therefore, if you have report headings, use method 2…
To Autofit 1 column second method:
Once you have written the text in the cell of a column that you want to Autofit:
- Select the cell (notice cell, not column) that contains the data you want to Autofit (note: if you have just entered data into cell, you have to press the enter key or move off the cell for the data to be accepted into the cell, then reselect the cell)
- Move your mouse to top of the spreadsheet where the menu options are.
- From the menu, Select->Format->Column->Autofit Selection
This will contract/expand the column to the min/max size of the text that has been entered.
These methods will work to Autofit both columns and rows. To Autofit a row, repeat the above steps and substitute ‘row’ for ‘column’.
There are additional ways to accomplish this, however they involve programming using macros and VB script and were not part of this question.
Hope that helps.
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