# How can I put a carriage return into an Excel cell?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-a-carriage-return-into-an-excel-cell/333458>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 30, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-a-carriage-return-into-an-excel-cell/333458 "2005-11-30T22:31:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![VegaBean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ee7513/32.png) [@VegaBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VegaBean)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-a-carriage-return-into-an-excel-cell/333458/1 "2005-11-30T22:31:16Z")

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Why you try to type a carriage return in a cell it just jumps to the next cell.  
I can get one in by cutting and pasting from Notepad into the formular bar, but that’s so clumsy.  
Is there perhaps an Alt- something that would do it?

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**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-a-carriage-return-into-an-excel-cell/333458/2 "2005-11-30T22:32:20Z")

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> [@VegaBean](#):
>
> Is there perhaps an Alt- something that would do it?

Yep … ALT + ENTER will do it.

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-a-carriage-return-into-an-excel-cell/333458/3 "2005-11-30T22:36:43Z")

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Also, if you have something that already contains carriage returns, and you want to paste it into one cell, make sure your mouse pointer is in the edit bar on top of the page, rather than in the cell itself or elsewhere. If it’s not in the edit bar, the carriage returns will cause the pasted material to parse out over multiple cells.

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**Author:** ![VegaBean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ee7513/32.png) [@VegaBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VegaBean)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-put-a-carriage-return-into-an-excel-cell/333458/4 "2005-11-30T22:36:48Z")

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Beautiful. That’s certainly both easy and memorable.  
I wish I’d asked years ago.  
Thanks.