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In Excel, if I have a Date cell which doesn't fit in a column, Excel with display the value as # until I resize the column properly.

But with Text cells there is nothing to show the overflowing status. Why doesn't Excel show an ellipsis (...) or something similar? Is there a way to alert the user there's more? Sometimes it's hard to tell if the visible part ends with whitespace. In my example I'm lucky the string is truncated, but if it were "Skills/Competencies" it still wouldn't be complete because the string goes on from there, and no one would know.

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  • Why doesn't Excel show an ellipsis (...) or something similar? I assume that is because Excel is not actually intended for text. Excel is meant for numbers and text is just to add explanation. Is there a way to alert the user there's more? Maybe, how much do you think is allowed? Would VBA be ok? I think what you could do is save all current cell widths, then have Excel autofit, those who changed do something with. It will not be good but it may solve the issue slightly
    – Andreas
    Commented Jun 5, 2020 at 17:47
  • In fact U are struggling with the AUTO FIT,,, you may try this to Auto Fit Column width,, Alt + H+ O+ I ,, and to Auto Fit Row height,, Alt + H + O + A. Another is using VBA Macro,, if you are comfortable with Macro, plz confirm through comments, also edit your post & add TAG to the question VBA .
    – Rajesh Sinha
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 6:08

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If you want the cells that are so to be indicated in some manner, you could use Conditional Formatting ("CF") to compare the cell's LEN() against the CELL("width", {relative address}) and set a background color, light pink, say, for those that seem like they'd exceed the cell's width. Then anyone looking at the information would have the visual clue you value to indicate there is more information available beyond what is displayed.

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Excel doesn't show an ellipsis because that's not a feature of the software :)

But seriously, if you're concerned about text being longer than the cell width, you have some options:

  1. Make the columns wide enough before distributing to users
  2. Use 'Home>Alignment>Wrap Text' and adjust the width and height of the cell so all the text is visible and easy to read
  3. Create a macro that autofits the column widths when a user opens the file

I suppose none of these are particularly appealing, but from the context in your post, I would recommend option 2. If you regularly expect somewhat longer answers, then format the columns/rows appropriately.

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