Adjust row heights to make Excel spreadsheets easier to read

by Mary Ann Richardson | Oct 17, 2006 7:00:00 AM

Tags: Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office, Excel spreadsheet, Mary Ann Richardson, Microsoft Office Suite Excel Tips Newsletter

Takeaway: Are all the rows in your Excel spreadsheet crunched together? Mary Ann Richardson explains how to adjust the height of your rows to allow your numbers some breathing room—and your eyes a bit of white space to acclimate to the differences.

Excel automatically adjusts rows to the size of your font. If you don't want to increase the font and prefer to add white space between the rows to make your worksheets easier to read, you can insert an empty row between two lines of data. This works to a point—it could invalidate formulas that refer to values, which may change any time you insert a row. Rather than changing all the formulas' relative references to absolute values, a better alternative is to adjust row height; simply click and drag a row's boundary beneath the row's number until there is enough white space to easily read the data.

You can also change the height of more than one row. To do so, select the desired rows and then click and drag one of the selected row's boundaries until you reach the desired height. If you need to change the height of all the rows in a worksheet to make it more readable, click the Select All button in the upper left hand corner of the spreadsheet, then click and drag one of the selected row's boundaries to the desired height.

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Print/View all Posts Comments on this article

Row Height Adjustment to fit text IamaMavericK | 10/17/06

RE: Row Height Adjustment to fit text r.david@... | 10/18/06

Not sure what the problem is with inserting rows techrepublic@... | 10/18/06

row height better way xbnu@... | 10/18/06

Inserting Rows Not a Good Idea PatriciaT | 10/18/06

Alternate to rows RogerAIA@... | 10/18/06

Potential errors in adding rows or columns Spook0 | 10/18/06

Potential errors in adding rows or columns r.david@... | 10/18/06

Easy way to set rows to an exact height cmk7471 | 10/19/06