How to Wrap Text across Multiple Cells without Merging in Excel

Excel by default displays long entries without merging if there is no content in the adjacent right-side cells. However, sometimes we need Excel to wrap text across multiple cells without merging to offer a better representation of data. Because merging cells poses various calculation discrepancies. Excel’s Format Cells and Custom Cell Style features allow users to wrap text across multiple cells without merging.

Let’s say we have a dataset where Customer Info is stored with respective Customer IDs. We want to wrap the Info across multiple cells without applying Merge & Center.

In this article, we demonstrate wrapping text across multiple cells without merging in Excel using Format Cells and Custom Cell Style features.

How to Wrap Text across Multiple Cells without Merging in Excel: 2 Ways

Excel offers the Wrap Text option to wrap text in merged cells. Also, Merge & Center option wraps text across multiple cells but merging poses issues while executing Excel operations. That’s why we can’t use these two options as a solution for text wrapping without merging. Instead, we use Format Cells and Custom Cell Style to wrap texts without merging along with multiple cells. Follow the below description to learn about the mentioned feature’s execution.

Method 1: Wrap Text across Multiple Cells Using Format Cells Feature

We can access the Format Cells using the Font Setting icon (CTRL+SHIFT+F) in the Font section Home tab. The Format Cells window holds multiple options to choose from. We can use keyboard shortcuts CTRL+1 to access the Format Cells window.

Step 1: Highlight the cells along with the text you want to wrap text across. Go to the Home tab > Click on the Font Setting icon (as shown in the below image).

Step 2: The Format Cells window opens up. In the window,

⇒ Choose the Alignment section.

Select Cross Across Selection as Horizontal Text alignment.

⇒ Choose any of the options (i.e., Center) as Vertical Text alignment.

⇒ Tick Wrap Text as Text Control.

Click on OK.

🔄 Clicking OK takes you to the worksheet. Furnish the data and you see a similar depiction as the picture below.

🔄 If you highlight the data to cross-check whether they are wrapped text or not, you see only the Wrap Text option is enabled along with the vertical position Center. Also, you see Excel spread out the data across multiple cells.

Method 2: Custom Cell Style to Wrap Text without Merging

Excel allows users to make a custom cell style of their own and apply it whenever they want. Therefore, we can pick our desired options to insert a custom cell style.

Step 1: Move to Home > Click on Cell Styles. Excel displays the offered Cell Styles.

Click on New Cell Style.

Step 2: The Style dialog box opens up. In the dialog box,

Assign a name in the Style Name command box.

Click on Format.

Step 3: Excel brings up the Format Cells window. In the window,

⇒ Choose the Alignment section.

In the Horizontal Text alignment command box, Choose Center Across Selection.

⇒ Select any of the options (i.e., Center) in the Vertical Text alignment command box.

⇒ Enable the Wrap Text option as Text Control.

Click on OK.

🔄 Again, Excel takes you to the Style dialog box. In the dialog box, you can apply other options such as Border, Shading, etc.

Click on OK.

Step 4: Now, highlight the cells you want to wrap the texts across. Go to the Home tab > Click on the Cell Styles.

Step 5: In the Cell Styles fetched window, there is a Custom option as Wrap Text Across. You can recall you earlier created the custom cell style in Steps 1, 2, and 3.

Click on the Wrap Text Across option.

🔄 After applying the custom cell style (i.e., Wrap Text Across), Excel takes you to the worksheet and you see Excel wrap text all the data across multiple cells without merging.

🔄 In case you want to verify the texts, just highlight the text; you see only the Wrap Text option is enabled. Excel highlights all the column indicators as proof of wrap text across the selection.

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Conclusion

In this article, we demonstrate how in Excel, you can wrap text across multiple cells without merging using features. Both Format Cells and Custom Cell Style are efficient in wrapping text across multiple cells without merging them. Hope these methods excel in their purposes in your case. Comment, if you have further inquiries or have anything to add.

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