Here is a list of formulas I wish MS Excel had. Alas, we need to build some work-arounds to solve them though.
- CONCATENATE (range): that can take a range of cells and churn out a big text combining all of them. Of course, here a VBA UDF alternative to concatenate range of cells.
- SPLIT (text, delimiter, part): that can take a text and split it based on the specified delimiter. We will have to use a formula based alternative to split text
- UNIQUE(list, number): that takes a list and returns the unique items based on the number specified. Well, for the time being we can get unique items with formulas.
- ISBETWEEN(number, first, second): to check whether “number” is between “first” and “second”. You can do this using AND() formula like AND(number>=first, number<=second).
- FINDLAST(findthis, text): that can find the last occurrence of a particular text in another text. I don’t know any good formula for this.
What are the formulas you wish Excel had ?














11 Responses to “Use Alt+Enter to get multiple lines in a cell [spreadcheats]”
@Chandoo:
One more useful trick.......
In a column you have no. of data in rows and need to copy in the next row from the previous row, no need to go for the previous rows but entering Alt + down arrow, you will get the list of data, (in asending order), entered in the previous rows...
This is another great tip. I use this all the time to make sense of some *very* long formulas. As soon as the formula is debugged I remove the break.
Great tip Chandoo!
I use this feature often and it has even gotten the, "how did you do that" response.
Thanks!
@Ketan: Alt+down arrow is an awesome tip. I never knew it and now I am using it everyday.
@Jorge, Tony: Agree... 🙂
[...] Day 1: Insert Line Breaks in a Cell [...]
how can we merge a two sheet.
excellent idea. Chandoo you are genious
Hi chandoo,
I have used ctrl+enter to break the cell. But I did not get the result.
Please tell me how can i break the cell in multiple lines.
Hi, Ranveer,
Its not Ctrl+enter to break the cell, use Alt+Enter to make it happen.
hi Chandoo....
how we can use Alt+Enter in multiple rows at the same time please reply hurry i have lot of work and have no time and i m stuck in this. 🙁
Alt+J worked once 🙁
So I found another more reliable way:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,CHAR(13),"")
Where A2 is the cell that contains the line breaks which the code for it is CHAR(13). It will replace it with whatever inside the ""