# Excel: Stop wrapping text

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-stop-wrapping-text/632380>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 23, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-stop-wrapping-text/632380 "2012-08-23T14:31:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-stop-wrapping-text/632380/1 "2012-08-23T14:31:47Z")

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I have a file that says, when opened, ‘Automatic update of links has been disabled. [Enable content]’ So I enabled content. Then, since I don’t want any hidden codes in the data, I copied everything and pasted as text. Upon defining column widths, I saw that the data was wrapping. So I selected everything, right-clicked, went to Format Cells, and then un-filled and un-checked ‘Wrap text’. OK, the text is unwrapped.

Only, when I change anything in a cell the worksheet goes back to wrapping and I have to unwrap everything again. And again. And again. I can copy everything and paste it as text into a new worksheet (and I will, since I’m working on the file now), but how do I tell Excel to not wrap the text and DON’T wrap it again?

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-stop-wrapping-text/632380/2 "2012-08-23T14:59:07Z")

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Never mind.

Non-displayed manual line breaks. (I wish I could see them in Excel 2010.)

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**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-stop-wrapping-text/632380/3 "2012-08-23T17:50:06Z")

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Now that was pretty subtle. Nice catch.