Ways to resize cells in Excel

In the process of working in the spreadsheet editor Excel, the user may need to resize a single cell. This is necessary in two cases: to save work space, when a cell takes up a large amount compared to the text located in it, and, conversely, to correctly display information when the text is hidden outside the cell. This article will show you how to resize cells in Excel. We will consider various ways that will be relevant in certain circumstances. Therefore, read the article to the end to choose the most suitable for yourself.

How to resize cells in Excel

Before you start parsing the resizing procedure, it’s worth explaining that a single cell cannot be edited in any way. If you change its width, then, accordingly, the width of the entire column will change. If you change the height - the height of the line. There are three ways to change the size of cells in Excel: by simply dragging its borders, setting values ​​in the options window, or automatically adjusting the size to fit the contents.

Method 1: Drag and Drop Borders

Perhaps the easiest method is this one. It is intuitive and does not require in-depth knowledge of the program. With it, you will be able to change both the width and the height of the cells, and if necessary, you can even do this operation on several cells at once.

Change the height

First of all, we will consider in detail the process of changing the height of a cell by simply dragging and dropping. To do this, you need to follow a few simple steps:

1. Hover over the left pane where the sheet line numbers are located.
2. Set it between two lines, based on which cell you want to increase or decrease.
3. After the cursor changes to two arrows diverging in different directions, hold down the left mouse button.
4. While holding it, pull up or down, depending on whether you want to increase the height or decrease.

Change the width

In fact, to change the width of the cell, you need to perform the same actions, only with columns. In order not to leave unnecessary questions, we will consider everything in detail.

1. Hover over the top bar, which is located above the very first line.
2. Hover over the border of two columns. Columns are denoted by a literal value (A, B, C, D, and so on).
3. Hold the cursor and move the mouse left or right.

After completing all these steps, you will change the column width, respectively, and the width of the desired cell.

Resize multiple rows or columns

In approximately the same way, you can resize multiple rows or columns at once. This is done quite simply:

1. Holding Ctrl, select LMB (with the left mouse button) those rows or columns whose size you want to change.
2. Hover over the border of the row or column that was selected.
3. Hold LMB and move the mouse in the direction you need.

As you can see, after that the size will change immediately in all selected elements. In this case, they will become the same size. By the way, if you were thinking how to resize Excel cells in Google spreadsheets, then this is done in exactly the same way.

Method 2: Change in number

If you are thinking about how to change the size of cells in Excel in mm, that is, to set a certain size, then now this is what will be told. Moreover, this operation can be done in several ways, which are further discussed.

How to change the height

To change the height of the cell, you must open a special window with the appropriate parameter and enter the desired value there. It is done like this:

1. Clicking LMB, select the desired cell.
2. Click on the “Home” tab.
3. On the toolbar, click on the "Format" button.
4. In the menu that appears, select the "Row Height" option.
5. A window of the same name appears with an input field.
6. Enter the value you need into it and click the "OK" button.

Immediately after this, the size of the selected cell changes. Accordingly, the size of the string will change.

How to change the width

As in the previous method, you can change the width of the cell in almost the same way as the height. To do this, you need to do a few simple steps:

1. Select the cell whose size you want to change. To do this, click on it LMB.
2. From the main tab, on the toolbar, click on the "Format" button.
3. In the list of options that appears, select Column Width.
4. In the window that opens immediately after that, enter the column width in the corresponding field.
5. Click the OK button.

Change by formatting

You can set the desired value for the width or height of the cell in another way, which implies calling the formatting window of the element through the context menu.

1. Select the column in the range of which the desired cell is located. If you want to change the height, select the line.
2. Click on the column itself or on the right-click mouse row.
3. In the context menu, select the option “Column width” or “Row height”, respectively.
4. A window already familiar by previous methods will appear in which you must specify the size.
5. Enter a value and click OK.

Now you know how to resize cells in Excel by specifying a specific value. But this is not the last way, so move on to the next.

Method 3: Automatically Resize Cells

Finally, we’ll show you how to automatically resize cells in Excel. To do this, you will also need to perform a few simple steps:

1. Select a cell.
2. Go to the main tab.
3. On the panel, click on the "Format" button.
4. From the pop-up menu, select the option "Auto-fit" or "Auto-fit width".

Immediately after this, the cell size will be adjusted to the values ​​located in it. Now you know how to resize cells in Excel by text. As can be noted, this is even easier than in previous methods.