How to Make a Cell Bigger in Excel
By Aksana Nikolai
Working with a poorly-formatted spreadsheet can be challenging. For example, a value with many decimal places may not fit into a standard-sized cell, cutting off and preventing you from seeing the entire value. One way of improving the formatting of your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is by increasing the cell size. You can make an individual cell bigger using the “Merge and Center” feature or increase the size of all of the cells in a row or column.
Merge Cells to Increase the Size of One Cell
Step 1
Highlight the cell you want to enlarge and the empty adjacent cells that you want to merge with the original cell.
Step 2
Click the “Home” tab, navigate to the “Alignment” group and select “Merge and Center.”
Step 3
Click the alignment buttons in the “Alignment” group of the “Home” tab to change the alignment of the data within the newly merged cell. For example, you may want to align the contents to the left instead of the right.
Drag Column or Row to Increase Size
Step 1
Hover the cursor over the boundary line on the right side of a column until you see a double arrow icon if you want to increase column width. Alternatively, hover over the boundary line at the bottom of a row to increase row height.
Step 2
Click and drag the boundary line to the right to increase column width. Click and drag the bottom boundary line down to increase row height.
Step 3
Release the mouse to set the new column or row size.
Enter Specific Row or Column Dimension
Step 1
Highlight the row(s) or column(s) whose dimensions you want to increase.
Step 2
Click the “Home” tab, and then select the “Format” options to reveal the “Format” drop-down menu.
Step 3
Select “Row Height” to increase row height or “Column Width” to increase column width.
Step 4
Enter the desired pixel size into the “Row Height” or “Column Width” dialog box. Click “OK” to apply the new dimensions to the selected row(s) or column(s).
References
Tips
- Merging a cell with adjacent cells that contain data will disrupt the data in the adjacent cells.
Writer Bio
Aksana Nikolai is a graduate of the New York Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in language studies and international affairs. Nikolai is currently working in online marketing and communications. She has been writing since 2008, specializing in made-for-Web content and maintaining her fashion and beauty blog.