Google Sheets is a powerful and dynamic tool for analyzing numbers but sometimes you may also find it useful for keeping records and doing data entry.
There may be times where you want to enter multiple lines of data in a single cell. But hitting the enter button does not bring you down to a new line the same way that it does in Google Docs or other word document programs.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to add a line break in a cell in Google Sheets.
Table of Contents
Line Break Keyboard Shortcut
The easiest way to add a line break inside a cell is to manually enter line breaks by using this keyboard shortcut:
ALT + ENTER
To add a new line with this shortcut, all you need to do is press ALT + ENTER (CONTROL + OPTION + ENTER if you are on a Mac) on your keyboard at the end of your first line
As you can see in the example above, this will add a new line so you can begin entering additional lines of data in the same cell
Line Break Formula
You can also use a formula to add line breaks as long as your data is divided by something that you can easily reference in the formula. This method will work well if you have a large dataset that would be too tedious to manually add line breaks.
In this example, I have commas separating parts of my address, and I can use a formula to automatically replace the commas with line breaks.
In this example the formula used is:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,“, “,CHAR(10))
CHAR(10) is the ASCII code for a line break, so what this formula is doing is it is finding every instance of a comma, and replacing it with a line break.
Again, this method will only work well if your data is separated by something you can easily replace with the SUBSTITUTE function.
In this example, each line happens to be separated by a comma, so the formula is easy to set up.
Closing Thoughts
The keyboard shortcut is the easiest method to go down a line in a cell, but if you have a large dataset, you can set up a formula to begin adding new lines.
Try out both methods in your own spreadsheet so that you become comfortable with both options. You may find you end up using the keyboard shortcut more often because it is much easier to do.
More Google Sheets Tutorials:
How to Combine Two Cells in One
How to Group Rows and Columns
How to Double Underline in Google Sheets