Excel Line Spacing: How to Adjust Line Spacing (2024)

Sometimes, you may need to input a long text into your Excel spreadsheet.

When you do, you need to make sure that it’s organized and presentable, not only for your sake but for others as well😊

One of the many ways to do that is Line Spacing. Line spacing improves the overall presentation of your text in Excel.

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to adjust the line spacing in Excel so you can make your data more organized and presentable✨

Download this Excel workbook so you can learn and practice as we go on with the lesson.

Adjust line spacing in a cell

Unlike Microsoft Word, there is no line spacing button in Excel.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t adjust the line spacing of text in Excel anymore.

Excel has a few tricks to help you make your text look so much better to read😉

01 change line spacing

To do that, you may increase the spacing between text lines.

It’s super easy. Just follow the steps below👇

  1. Select the cell with the text you want to adjust. In our example, it’s cell A1.
  2. Click the Home Tab.
02 click Home Tab
  1. Click the Alignment settings icon.
03 alignment settings icon

Then, the Format cells dialog box will appear.

  1. In the Alignment Tab, click the drop-down arrow near the Vertical text alignment option to show alignment options.
  2. Choose the Justify option.
04 Format cells
  1. Finally, click OK.
05 change line spacing in Excel

This is now the result.

The text is justified and aligned. There is equal spacing between the lines.

It looks better than before, don’t you think? 😊

06 equal spacing

There is another way to change the line spacing of text in Excel.

Adjust line spacing in a text box

Microsoft Excel also allows you to insert a text box into your spreadsheets.

A text box lets you add text anywhere in your Excel file without affecting your cells💬

As you can change the line spacing of your text in cells, you can do so in text boxes too.

Here’s how💪

  1. Go to the Insert tab.
07 change line spacing in text box
  1. In the Text group, click the downward arrow to see Text options.
  2. Select Text Box.
08 insert text box
  1. Draw a text box by dragging your cursor across the spreadsheet.
09 create text box in a blank space
  1. Enter your text.

Then, select all the text in the text box.

10 select text in text box
  1. Right-click on the selected text and select Paragraph from the right-click menu.
11 click paragraph

The Paragraph dialog box will open.

  1. Now, change the line spacing to the way you want.

In this example, it’s 1.5 line spacing.

12 change line spacing
  1. Click OK.
13 how to change line spacing in Excel

This is now the result😊

The lines are not too close to each other.

Now, it looks more organized and presentable which makes it easier to read👀

Easier to read

Alternatively, you can use the Before and After spacing options where you have more line spacing text control.

Just repeat the steps shown above and change the line spacing😊

That’s it – Now what?

Neat work! 🙌

A simple change in line spacing can greatly change the overall look of your data. This makes you look more organized, more presentable, and more professional.

But we are barely covering how amazing and powerful Microsoft Excel is.

You can let Excel do the work with your data–from organization, computation, analysis, and visualization. You name it! Excel got you covered💪

First, you need to cover the basics of Excel as well. And I got you covered for that😊

Join my free online course where you’ll learn the basics of Excel and the core Excel functions: SUM, AVERAGE, and COUNT you shouldn’t miss out.

Other resources

If you want your Excel spreadsheets to look more organized, presentable, and professional, check out these articles for your next read:

By learning, you’ll excel in Excel in no time🚀

Frequently asked questions

To get double line spacing in Excel,

  1. Select all the text in the text box.
  2. Right-click and select Paragraph in the menu.
  3. In the Line spacing box, choose Double.
  4. Click OK.

To get rid of the double line spacing in Excel,

  1. Select all the text in the text box.
  2. Right-click and select Paragraph in the menu.
  3. In the Line spacing box, choose Single.
  4. Click OK.