# MS Excel help: possible to include line breaks in a cell?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 24, 2001, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340 "2001-10-24T17:09:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340/1 "2001-10-24T17:09:06Z")

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I’ve been working on a giant spreadsheet for some time, and it’s necessary to include whole paragraphs of information in one cell. While I can get text to wrap, I can’t figure out a way to include a line break without Excel deciding to put the information into the next cell. Is what I want even possible?

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**Author:** ![epeepunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f19dbf/32.png) [@epeepunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epeepunk)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340/2 "2001-10-24T17:14:02Z")

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I have yet to find a way - it is something I like to do to format my headers. I wonder sometimes if I could insert the control character for line break in a field.

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**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340/3 "2001-10-24T17:15:31Z")

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Shift-Enter should do the trick. (or was it Ctrl-Enter? Alt-Enter?)

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**Author:** ![epeepunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f19dbf/32.png) [@epeepunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epeepunk)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340/4 "2001-10-24T17:18:04Z")

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Alt-Enter is it. Why didn’t I ever try that. ☹

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**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340/5 "2001-10-24T17:22:17Z")

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Glory be! **Terminus Est** , I’ll raise my glass to you when I celebrate finishing this project. Woo hoo!

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-excel-help-possible-to-include-line-breaks-in-a-cell/89340/6 "2001-10-24T17:34:00Z")

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Alt-Enter does it for me.