In this post, we will take you through how to autofit columns and rows in excel. At the end of this post, you should be able to know how to autofit a column and row by using both mouse / touchpad and Keyboard shortcuts. Ready? Let’s go.
How to Autofit Column Width
The default column width in excel is 8.43 characters wide but this doesn’t mean we are restricted to this measurement. You can choose to autofit a given column based on the cell with the longest number of characters, you can also choose to manually adjust the column by dragging the width to your preference or better still you can manually type in the width. Don’t worry, we would touch on the various ways of adjusting column width
AutoFit by Dragging
Well, we should properly label this as Semi-Auto fit by dragging because we still need to make use of personal judgement to determine whether or not the columns have been correctly fitted
Autofit Based on Cell with Longest Character
To automatically fit a column based on the cell with the longest number of characters, just follow these steps:
Step 1: Navigate to the right border of the column
Step 2: Double click the right border of the column header.
In our example above, the longest word in Column B is New Hamisphere and excel has auto fitted that column according to its number of characters. Note that you are not limited to auto fitting one column at a time, you can autofit multiple columns at a time by following these steps:
Step 1: Highlight the columns you want to autofit
Step 2: Double click the right border of any of the column headers
How to Autofit row Height
The default row height in excel is 15 which is equivalent to 20 Pixels or One-fifth of an inch. Sometimes the information you want to show may extend beyond the default row height of 15. There is therefore a need to know how to adjust row height so that you display all the information at once without excel hiding parts of the text. Want to know how to autofit row height? Just follow these steps:
Step 1: Select the number of rows you want to autofit by dragging over the rows.
Step 2: Navigate to the home tab > Format > Auto fit row height
Result: Excel would expand the row height based the content of each row
Autofit row height by Double Clicking
You can also autofit row height by double clicking any of the rows highlighted. Just follow these steps
Step 1: Highlight the rows you want to autofit
Step 2: Double click on the row border of any of the columns you highlighted and voila!
Autofit Using Keyboard Shortcuts
In this section we would be looking at quick ways to autofit rows and columns without having to go through the excel ribbon. For those who cant memorize, don’t worry, just write it down and keep close to your workstation. As you refer to it when the need arises, your brain would get used to it later on and it would just come naturally.
Autofit Column Width with Keyboard Shortcut
To autofit column width, use the shortcut combination below:
To use this successfully, you need to follow the order and press those keys in succession. Meaning that you first press the Alt key, then the H key and so on (in succession). After executing, you should see the column width automatically adjusted to the character width of the longest text within the column.
Autofit Row Height with Keyboard Shortcut
To autofit row height, use the shortcut combination below:
Like we discussed under autofitting column height, the same rule applies here. We need to follow the order and press those keys in quick succession to execute.
