Preserve Line Breaks in Excel Cells

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To transfer a Word table of postal addresses into an Excel spreadsheet while preserving line breaks within a single cell, it is possible to use the keyboard shortcut Alt + Enter to insert line breaks. This allows multiple lines of an address to be contained within one cell in Excel. However, if the requirement changes to having each piece of data in separate columns, users can manually format the data by merging cells or adjusting the layout to fit the desired structure. Excel's merging feature retains only the data from the top-left cell, which can be misleading. For optimal organization, users should consider separating address components into distinct columns for clarity and better data management.
DaveC426913
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I need to get a Word table of postal addresses into an Excel spreadsheet.

I want to preserve the line breaks in the original addresses. Is it possible to have line breaks within a single cell in Excel?

From Word table:


...Col 1...Col2

R1: Bob Smith...21 Foo St.
......Toronto ON
......M8Q 2S2
R2: Biff Grunties...43 Bar St.
......Toronto ON
......M4V 1D8


into Excel sheet: :approve: :approve: :approve: :approve: :


...Col 1...Col2

R1: Bob Smith...21 Foo St.
......Toronto ON
......M8Q 2S2
R2: Biff Grunties...43 Bar St.
......Toronto ON
......M4V 1D8


what I'm getting now :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :

...Col 1...Col2

R1: Bob Smith...21 Foo St.
R2: ...Toronto ON
R3: ...M8Q 2S2
R4: Biff Grunties...43 Bar St.
R5: ...Toronto ON
R6: ...M4V 1D8
 
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DaveC426913 said:
Is it possible to have line breaks within a single cell in Excel?

I've never been able to do it, not through lack of effort thought
 
Failing that, each item of data in a separate column is preferred:

From Word table:

...Col 1...Col2
R1: Bob Smith...21 Foo St.
......Suite 700
......Toronto ON
......M8Q 2S2
R2: Biff Grunties...43 Bar St.
......Toronto ON
......M4V 1D8
......(800) 555-1212


To Excel sheet:


...Col 1...Col 2...Col 3...Col 4...Col 5...Col 6...Col 7...

R1: Bob Smith...21 Foo St....Suite 700......Toronto ON...M8Q 2S2
R2: Biff Grunties...43 Bar St.........Toronto ON...M4V 1D8...(800) 555-1212
 
Last edited:
There are a lot of ways to do this, but here is one way:

Select the three cells that you want to merge. Right click and select format cells. Click on the alignment tab and then check the "merge cells" check box. Then click the down arrow on the vertical alignment box and choose either top, bottom, center, etc. (whatever suits your needs)

If I completely misread your question, then I apologize.:redface:
 
Omega_6 said:
There are a lot of ways to do this, but here is one way:

Select the three cells that you want to merge. Right click and select format cells. Click on the alignment tab and then check the "merge cells" check box. Then click the down arrow on the vertical alignment box and choose either top, bottom, center, etc. (whatever suits your needs)

If I completely misread your question, then I apologize.:redface:
Gah! Is THAT where the MERGE CELLS command is! I've been looking for it!

Thanks. That may not still not work, but it's one more club in my bag.
 
Well, at least it helped a little bit.:smile:
Let me know if you get it or not, or maybe go into more detail.
 
Well, doesn't that just blow honkin' donkey chunks.

Excel's idea of a merge is to keep only the data in the top-left-most cell - it displays a warning to say so. That's not a merge at all!

Can you imagine if that *were* the definiton of merge?

"Warning: merging traffic. Only traffic in left lane will be kept. All other traffic will explode."
 
That was just great...:smile:

Anyways, I know that I've done something similar to what you are trying to do. I'll look into it later, its just been a while.:wink:

::edit:: Pressing alt+enter will insert a line break within a cell.
 
Last edited:
Omega_6 said:
::edit:: Pressing alt+enter will insert a line break within a cell.

That is soooo helpful, I've been trying to do a similar thing for months

~Hoot
 
  • #10
Hootenanny said:
That is soooo helpful, I've been trying to do a similar thing for months

~Hoot

:approve: :approve: :approve: :approve: That's the answer!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: Too bad the requirements have changed in the meantime! Now they want each piece of data (addr1 addr2 city, prov, etc.) in its own column!
 
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