Here is a very quick tip if you ever want to hide a cell’s contents in excel
Just use the custom cell formatting (more here) code ;;;
How? (see the screencast aside too)
1. Select the cell you want to hide
2. Hit CTRL+1 (or open format cells dialog from right click)
3. Go to Number tab, select “custom” as the type
4. Type the formatting code as “;;;” without double quotes
5. Press OK and your cell contents are invisible now
What is the use of doing this?
1. This might be handy when you are using conditional formatting to highlight / change cell colors
2. This might be handy when you need to calculate intermediate values, but dont want to display them. (But try to use Hide rows / hide columns feature if you can)
Remember: This formatting code only blanks out the cell contents from being seen. They contents are still there and accessible for formulas, charts as such.
Also know how to display colors in chart data labels using custom cell formatting codes
What is your favorite cell formatting trick?
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 ""