How to Autofit in Excel and Format Your Data

Autofit in Excel allows you to automatically resize the column width and row height to format your data in spreadsheets. Here's how!

If you want your spreadsheets to look neat, you can’t have text spilling out of cells, making the data hard to read. Fortunately, Excel comes with the AutoFit feature that helps you adjust the column width or row height with a few clicks.

In this article, we’ll go through three methods of autofitting columns and rows in Excel. This way, you can find the one that suits your working style. Also, we’ll discuss when you can’t use Excel AutoFit and how to work around it.

1. Double-Click to AutoFit

This is the easiest method, and it works great when you’re editing a small spreadsheet and want to autofit single columns and rows, so you can get your file ready to print.

Simply hover the cursor over the column or row edge. The cursor should switch into a double-sided arrow. Now, double-click your mouse or touchpad left-key.

No matter which method you use, if you need to autofit multiple columns or rows, simply select them by clicking the headers. To autofit the entire spreadsheet, press Ctrl + A or click the Select All button and double-click a column or row border.

Note: Even if you've selected all cells and used the autofit feature, Excel will not adjust the columns or rows as you type. You would have to autofit the cells again when you're done editing them.

2. Use Excel Ribbon to AutoFit

If you're using a multi-display setup, you're probably not sitting very close to your monitors, so you might have a hard time seeing the double-sided arrow. In this case, you should access the AutoFit feature from Excel's ribbon.

1. Select the rows or columns.
2. Open the Home tab.
3. From the Cells menu, click Format.
4. There, use the AutoFit Row Height or AutoFit Column Width option.

3. Use a Keyboard Shortcut

There's also the possibility to use a keyboard shortcut to access Excel Autofit to save time and effort. Similar to the previous methods, select the rows or columns that you want to autofit. Press Alt + H, then press O. Now, if you want to autofit a column's width, press I.To autofit a row’s height, press A.

For this keyboard shortcut to work, don’t press the keys at the same time. If you slowly press them in the correct order, you can notice what happens after you press each key:

1. Alt + H select the Home tab.
2. O opens the Format menu.
3. I or A select AutoFit Columns Width or AutoFit Row Height.

Even if you don’t remember the entire key combination, you can still use it, as Excel will show you the keys you have to press to access the ribbon menus or tools.

When You Can’t Use AutoFit

According to Microsoft, you can’t use the AutoFit feature for rows or columns with merged cells. A quick workaround is to manually adjust the columns' width and row height. However, if you’re editing a large spreadsheet, this might not be the best method.

A more efficient alternative is to select all cells and use Excel tools for formatting cells. In the Home tab, head to the Cells menu and click Format > Format cells. Then, in the Alignment tab, select Wrap text or Fit to shrink and click OK.

Upgrade Your Excel Skills

Knowing how to autofit columns width and rows height is one of the basic Excel skills that will help you keep data organized.

Fortunately, Excel has more tools and features that will save you from manually completing boring and repetitive tasks. And some of the best Excel courses are available online, so you’ll become an advanced Excel user in no time.