In Microsoft Excel, column width is the horizontal measurement of a column. By default, the column width is 8.43 characters, which means that it can display 8.43 characters of the default font and size. However, this may not be enough to fit the data or text that you enter in the cells. In that case, you may want to adjust the column width to make your worksheet more readable and presentable.
There are several ways to adjust the column width in Excel, such as using the mouse, entering a custom number, or using the AutoFit feature. In this article, we will explain the basic theory behind column width, the procedures to change it, and some examples and scenarios to illustrate the concepts.
The column width in Excel is measured in character units, not in pixels or inches. A character unit is based on the width of the character “0” of the default font and size. For example, if the default font is Calibri and the default font size is 11, then one character unit is equal to 8.25 pixels. You can check the default font and size in the Excel Options dialog box, under the General category.
The minimum and maximum values for the column width are 0 and 255, respectively. If you set the column width to 0, the column will be hidden. If you set the column width to a value greater than 255, it will be reduced to 255.
To change the column width, you need to select the column or columns that you want to modify, and then use one of the methods that we will describe in the next section.
Procedures
Using the Mouse
One of the easiest and most common ways to adjust the column width is to use the mouse. You can drag the border of the column header to the right or left to increase or decrease the column width. You can also double-click the border to automatically fit the column width to the longest entry in the column. This is called the AutoFit feature, and we will explain it in more detail later.
To use the mouse to adjust the column width, follow these steps:
- Place your mouse pointer on the right border of the column header that you want to adjust. The pointer will change to a double-headed arrow.
- Hold and drag the border to the right or left until you reach the desired width, then release the mouse button.
- To adjust multiple columns at once, select the columns first, and then drag the border of any column header in the selection.
- To AutoFit the column width, double-click the border instead of dragging it.
Entering a Custom Number
Another way to adjust the column width is to enter a custom number in the Format Cells dialog box. You can specify the exact width that you want for the column, as long as it is within the minimum and maximum values.
To enter a custom number to adjust the column width, follow these steps:
- Select the column or columns that you want to adjust.
- Right-click on the selection and choose Format Cells from the context menu. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+1 on your keyboard.
- In the Format Cells dialog box, go to the Alignment tab and enter the desired width in the Column width box. You can also use the up and down arrows to increase or decrease the width by 0.01 character units.
- Click OK to apply the changes.
Using the AutoFit Feature
The AutoFit feature is a handy tool that automatically adjusts the column width to fit the longest entry in the column. This way, you don’t have to manually drag the border or enter a custom number. You can use the AutoFit feature by double-clicking the border of the column header, as we mentioned before, or by using the Format command on the ribbon.
To use the AutoFit feature to adjust the column width, follow these steps:
- Select the column or columns that you want to adjust.
- On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format and choose AutoFit Column Width from the drop-down menu.
- Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Alt+H+O+I to apply the AutoFit feature.
Examples
To illustrate the different ways to adjust the column width, let’s use an example of a worksheet that contains some data about the sales of different products in a store. The worksheet looks like this:
| Product | Price | Quantity | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | $1.00 | 50 | $50.00 |
| Banana | $0.50 | 100 | $50.00 |
| Carrot | $0.25 | 200 | $50.00 |
| Date | $0.75 | 100 | $75.00 |
| Egg | $0.10 | 500 | $50.00 |
| Total | 950 | $275.00 |
As you can see, the default column width is not enough to display the data clearly, and some of the text is cut off or overlaps with the adjacent cells. To fix this, we can use any of the methods that we learned to adjust the column width.
Using the Mouse
If we want to use the mouse to adjust the column width, we can select the columns A to D, and then drag the border of any column header to the right until the data is fully visible. Alternatively, we can double-click the border to AutoFit the column width. The result will look like this:
| Product | Price | Quantity | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | $1.00 | 50 | $50.00 |
| Banana | $0.50 | 100 | $50.00 |
| Carrot | $0.25 | 200 | $50.00 |
| Date | $0.75 | 100 | $75.00 |
| Egg | $0.10 | 500 | $50.00 |
| Total | 950 | $275.00 |
Entering a Custom Number
If we want to enter a custom number to adjust the column width, we can select the columns A to D, and then right-click and choose Format Cells. In the Format Cells dialog box, we can enter the desired width in the Column width box. For example, if we want to set the column width to 10 characters, we can enter 10 and click OK. The result will look like this:
| Product | Price | Quantity | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | $1.00 | 50 | $50.00 |
| Banana | $0.50 | 100 | $50.00 |
| Carrot | $0.25 | 200 | $50.00 |
| Date | $0.75 | 100 | $75.00 |
| Egg | $0.10 | 500 | $50.00 |
| Total | 950 | $275.00 |
Using the AutoFit Feature
If we want to use the AutoFit feature to adjust the column width, we can select the columns A to D, and then click Format on the Home tab and choose AutoFit Column Width. Alternatively, we can press Alt+H+O+I on the keyboard. The result will be the same as using the mouse and double-clicking the border, as shown below:
| Product | Price | Quantity | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | $1.00 | 50 | $50.00 |
| Banana | $0.50 | 100 | $50.00 |
| Carrot | $0.25 | 200 | $50.00 |
| Date | $0.75 | 100 | $75.00 |
| Egg | $0.10 | 500 | $50.00 |
| Total | 950 | $275.00 |
Other Approaches
Besides the methods that we have discussed, there are some other ways to adjust the column width in Excel, such as using the ribbon, the keyboard, or VBA. Here are some brief descriptions of these approaches:
- Using the ribbon: You can use the ribbon to change the column width by clicking on the Home tab, in the Cells group, and then clicking Format. From the drop-down menu, you can choose Column Width and enter a custom number, or choose AutoFit Column Width to use the AutoFit feature.
- Using the keyboard: You can use the keyboard to change the column width by selecting the column or columns that you want to adjust, and then pressing Alt+O+C+W. This will open the Column Width dialog box, where you can enter a custom number and press Enter. To use the AutoFit feature, you can press Alt+H+O+I instead.
- Using VBA: You can use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) to change the column width by writing a macro that uses the ColumnWidth property of the Range object. For example, the following code will set the column width of column A to 15 characters:
Sub AdjustColumnWidth()
Range("A:A").ColumnWidth = 15
End Sub
To use the AutoFit feature, you can use the AutoFit method of the Range object. For example, the following code will AutoFit the column width of columns A to D:
Sub AutoFitColumnWidth()
Range("A:D").AutoFit
End Sub