how to add lines in google docs

Google Sheets is a great tool when you want to work with numbers, but a lot of people use it to maintain records and keep track of stuff.

And when you work with text data in Google Sheets, you will sometimes have a need to have multiple lines in the same cell.

In this tutorial, I will show you a few ways you can use to insert a new line in the same cell in Google Sheets. This can be done manually (if you're typing and need to add a new line), or you can use a formula as well.

So let's get started!

Manually add a new line in the same cell (Keyboard Shortcut)

If you're manually entering data in Google Sheets, you can use the below keyboard shortcut to add a new line in the same cell.

ALT + ENTER (hold the alt key and then press the Enter key)

Below are the steps to use this in a cell to go to a new line:

Double-click on the cell in which you want to add a line break (or select it and then press F2).
Place the cursor where you want to insert the line break
Hold the ALT key and then press the Enter key (or Control + Option + Enter if you're using a Mac)

Manually Add Line Break in the same cell

The above steps would add a new line and you will see the cursor in the next line.

Replace a Character with Line Break in Google Sheets

Using the keyboard shortcut to get to a new line is fine if you're manually entering the data. But with large datasets, you can also use the help of a simple formula.

Suppose you have a dataset as shown below where there are addresses that have a comma separating parts of it. If you want to remove this comma and replace this with a line break (so that each part of it is in a new line), you can do that using a formula.

Data where comma needs to be replaced with linebreak

Below is the formula that will place each part in the new line in the same cell:

          =          SUBSTITUTE          (          A2          ,          ", "          ,          CHAR          (          10          )          )

Substitute formula to add line breaks instead of comma

The above formula looks for the comma in the text in the cell and replaces it with CHAR(10), which is the ASCII code for a line break.

For this formula to give you the expected result (where each part of the address is in a new line in the same cell), you need to make sure that the wrap text for these cells is enabled (the cells where you have used the formula).

To enable Wrap text, click the Formatting option in the menu and click on Text wrapping –> Wrap.

So there are two quick ways to add a new line in the same cell in Google Sheets. If you only have a few cells where you need to do this, you can use the Control + Enter method, else you can try the formula method.

Hope you found this tutorial useful!

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