How to Indent in Excel

Add indentations to some or all contents within a spreadsheet cell

By
Scott Orgera
Scott Orgera
Scott Orgera
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    Scott Orgera is a former Lifewire writer covering tech since 2007. He has 25+ years' experience as a programmer and QA leader, and holds several Microsoft certifications including MCSE, MCP+I, and MOUS. He is also A+ certified.
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    Updated on November 2, 2021

    What to Know

    • Select the cells you want to indent and go to Home > Alignment > Increase Indent.
    • Select Increase Indent again to add more space. To remove the indentation, choose the cells again, then select Decrease Indent.
    • To indent individual selections in a cell, select them and go to Home > Alignment > Wrap Text. Manually indent the second line of text.

    Excel spreadsheets help you organize, manipulate, and share data, but sometimes text formatting is as important. You may need to indent text in an Excel cell when using a specific layout or adding a paragraph, for example. Here's how to use Excel's built-in indenting function in Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel Online, Excel 2019, and Excel 2016.

    How to Indent the Contents of a Cell or Set of Cells

    If your spreadsheet has text elements, adding indents might help readability.

    1. Select the cell or cells containing the content you want to indent.

      Select the cell or cells containing the content you want to indent.

    2. Go to the Home tab.

      The Home tab in Excel

    3. In the Alignment section, select Increase Indent. The icon has four horizontal lines and a right-facing arrow.

      The Increase Indent button

    4. The text in the selected cells is indented. To add more indentation space, select Increase Indent again.

      The text in your selected cells will now be indented.

    5. To remove the indentation space, select the cells and then select Decrease Indent. This icon has four horizontal lines with a left-facing arrow.

      The Decrease Indent button

    How to Indent Individual Selections Within a Cell

    If your text is too long to fit in a cell, wrap the text to the next line. However, if you want to indent the next line, you cannot use the Increase Indent feature. There's an easy workaround. Here's how it works:

    1. Select the cell containing the text that's too long.

      Select the cell containing the text that's too long.

    2. Go to the Home tab and, in the Alignment section, select Wrap Text.

      The Wrap Text button

    3. The text extends to two lines.

      Your text will now extend to two lines.

    4. Select the text in the cell before the second line of text and press Alt+Enter on a PC or Option+Return on a Mac.

      Click your cursor into the cell just before the second line of text and press Alt-Enter on a PC or Option-Return on a Mac.

    5. Press the spacebar a few times to add a manual indent to the second line of text. Adjust to your preferences.

      Hit the spacebar a few times to add a manual indent to the second line of text.
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