How to Add a Line Break in a Cell

To write more than one line inside a cell, you need a line break. You can add one yourself with Alt + Enter, or with a formula.

With Alt + Enter

1. Select the cell with long text, here B2.

   

2. Double-click the cell (or press F2) and click where the new line should start. Here, right after the colon.

   

3. Press Alt + Enter.

4. To make column B wider, drag the right border of its heading.

   

5. Double-click the bottom border of the row 2 heading to fit the row to the text.

   

Result:

To remove the line break, put the cursor at the start of the second line and press Backspace.

Tip: On a Mac, press Control + Option + Return.

With a formula: CHAR(10)

CHAR(10) is the line-break character. Use it to join text from several cells onto separate lines.

1. In cell E5, type =B3&CHAR(10)&C3&CHAR(10)&D3 and press Enter.

   

2. The line breaks only show when Wrap Text is on. If they don’t, click Home > Wrap Text.

   

Using Microsoft 365? =TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10),TRUE,B3:D3) does the same thing and skips empty cells.

Remove line breaks

To replace line breaks with commas, use SUBSTITUTE:

1. In cell B8, type =SUBSTITUTE(E5,CHAR(10),",") and press Enter.