Letting text overflow into the adjacent cell is fine as long as you don’t put information into that adjacent cell. However, in the body of most spreadsheets you’ll want columns of information side by side, and if you do put information into the adjacent cell the end of the long text is ‘clipped’.
To avoid this, you can alter the widths of the columns so that the texts will fit in them without leaking over into adjacent cells. You can change the width of a single column or several columns at once.
To change the width of a single column, position the mouse pointer over the right edge of the column bar. The mouse pointer will change to a movement indicator:
Drag the mouse (keep the mouse button pressed while moving) to resize the column.
To change several columns at once, first select them and resize any of the selected cells.
Alternatively, you can select the Column Width command from the Format menu. The "Column Width" dialog box is displayed.
Do one of the following:
In the Column Width box, type the width you require in points. A point is 1/96 of an inch, or 0.026cm, so type 96 if you want the column to be 1 inch.
You can ask Spreadsheet to find the best width, given the texts you have entered. To do this, click on the Best Fit button. Spreadsheet will then look at the longest text in the chosen column and adjust the width so that the text will be displayed in its entirety. If you have highlighted several columns, Spreadsheet will find the appropriate best width for each of the columns.
If you want to go back to the default width of 80 points, click on the checkbox next to Standard.
When you have altered the column width to suit, click on the OK button and the spreadsheet will be redrawn to your specification.
Note: You can tell Spreadsheet to keep the width of a column, and instead of writing across into adjacent cells, move extra text down onto a new line within the same cell. To do this, select the cell in question and choose the Alignment command from the Format menu. Then click on the checkbox next to Wrap Text in the "Alignment" dialog box.
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