How to Change Column Width in mm in Excel (A Step-by-Step Guideline)

Sometimes you need to change the width of columns or height of rows in Excel from default unit Inches to other standard universal units like centimeters or millimeters for the convenience to work. You can usually change column width in mm in Excel very easily. In this tutorial, we will learn how to change column width in mm in Excel.

A Step-by-Step Guideline to Set Column Width in mm in Excel

Let’s assume a scenario where we have information about the delivery system of a shop that sells various computer accessories. The information about the Product, Delivery Date, Deadline to deliver the product, and delivery Status. We might want to change column width to mm from the default unit inches. We will follow these simple steps to change Excel column width in mm. The image below shows the Excel worksheet we are going to work with.

Step 1: Open Excel Options to Change Column Width

• Click File tab or Microsoft Office Button (Excel 2007), click Options.

• In the Excel Options window, click Advanced.

Step 2: Change Column Width Unit to mm From Display Section

• Scroll down the window that appears until you find the Display Under the Display section, you can change the measurement unit to Millimeters in Ruler units. You can also change the unit to Centimeters if you want.
• Click OK.

Note: By changing Ruler units to inches, we can set the column width to inches and by changing Ruler Units to centimeters we can make the column width to centimeters.

Read More: How to Change Excel Column Width in Pixels

Step 3: Some Examples to Set the Column Width in mm in Excel

Now that we have changed the unit to millimeters, we will apply this change width of columns using various methods.

Example 1: Use of Column Width Input Box

You can change the width of a column by entering the width in the Column Width input box.

Step 1:

• Click the View tab, in the Workbook Views group, click the Page Layout.

• Right-click the Header of the column that you want to change the width of, choose Column Width.

Step 2:

• A window will appear titled Column Width. It will have an input box named Column width. You can put your desired column width in mm in that box.
• After entering the column width in mm, click OK.

• The width of the column will be changed to the dimension you entered in the input box.

Example 2: Drag Column to Change Width in mm

Dragging the column header will also let you change the width of the column.

Steps:

• While in the Page Layout, you can also change the width of columns by using the mouse: drag the boundary on the right side of the column heading until the column reaches the width that you want.

Example 3: Change Width of Multiple Columns

We can also the width of the multiple columns at the same time. To do that, let’s follow these steps.

Steps:

• Select the columns you want to change the width of. In this example, we will change the width of the Delivery Date, Deadline, and Status So, we will select these 3 columns. Now, just like the above-mentioned example, drag the boundary on the right side of the outer right column (Status Column) until the columns reach the width you want.

●      Upon releasing the Drag icon, the width of the column will be changed to the new width.

Example 4: Select Cell to Change Width in mm

You can also change the width of a column or multiple columns by selecting the cell(s) of a column or multiple columns.

Step 1:

• First, select a cell in the column that you change the width of. For example, we want to change the width of the Deadline So we will select cell D6 in that column. You can also select multiple cells from different columns to change the width of these columns at once.

• On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format. A drop-down list will appear. Select Column Width from that list.

Step 2:

• Column Width will It will have an input box named Column width. You can put your desired column width in mm in that box.
• After entering the column width in mm, click OK.

• The width of the column will be changed to the dimension you entered in the input box.

Example 5: Shortcut Keys to Change Column Width

There is another more convenient way to change the column width. You can use shortcut keys from your keyboard to change the width of the column.

Step 1:

• First, select the column or columns you want to change the width of.
• While holding down ALT, press H, O, and W This will bring the Column Width pop-up window. Enter the width of the column in that box.
• Press OK.

Step 2:

• Upon pressing OK, the width of the column(s) will be changed.
• After changing the column(s) width, you can go back to the Normal view from the View See the image below to find out how to go back to the Normal view.

Things to Remember

• You will always have to be in the Page Layout view to have column widths in millimeters or centimeters. If you switch to Normal view, then column widths and row heights will be displayed in points.
• While Excel tries to make the column width you specified, in some cases, you may find that the width is not exactly what you specified, but still very close to it. For example, if you specify 4 centimeters, it may give you 3.98 millimeters. This is something you can’t get around.

Download Practice Workbook

Download this practice book to exercise the task while you are reading this article.

Conclusion

In this article, we have learned to change the Excel column width in mm. I hope from now on you would find it very easy to change the column width in excel to mm. If you have any queries or recommendations about this article, please do leave a comment below. Have a great day!!!