How to Indent in Excel? 3 Easy Methods
Note: This guide on how to indent in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365.
Have you ever noticed that the numbers in Excel are always aligned to the right? Similarly, the text strings are always aligned on the left. Also, did you notice that the cell contents always stick to the cell borders?
But, in some cases, you may want to change this. For example, you are preparing a financial report and want all the subtotals of a category to start a few pixels away from the cell border. (Simonsezit)
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This is called indentation and it helps in presenting your data better. It reduces the clutter in your spreadsheet and makes it easier for the user to view and interpret the data.
In this guide, I’ll show you how to quickly indent in Excel.
Watch this short video and learn How to Indent in Excel
How to Indent in Excel Using the Excel Ribbon?
The Excel ribbon has a ready-made button to apply indent to your cells in Excel. To use this, just follow these steps:
- Select the range of cells where you want to apply the indentation.
- In the Home tab, inside the Alignment group, click on the Increase Indent icon.
This will apply an indent of three spaces to all the cell contents, from the left margin. If there are multiple lines in
these cells, then each one of them will be indented by three spaces from the cell margin.
3. Keep clicking the Increase Indent button to increment the indent by three spaces.
4. To decrease the indent already present in a cell, click on the Decrease Indent icon. It will decrease the indent by
three spaces.
Also Read:
How to Unmerge Cells in Excel? 3 Best Methods
How to Add Subscript in Excel? (6 Best Methods)
How to Apply the Accounting Number Format in Excel? (3 Best methods)
How to Apply Different Indents to Each Individual Line in a Cell?
In some cases, you may want to apply different indents to each line in the cell. As we just saw, the built-in indent option in the Excel ribbon cannot do this.
But there is still a way to accomplish this in Excel. All you need to do is just add them manually for each line.
You can do this by following these steps:
- Double click on the cell where you want to apply indentation. Add a line break using Alt+Enter, where you want to add an indent.
- Go to the beginning of the line where you want to add an indent.
- Manually press space as many times as you want the indent size to be.
- Repeat the same process for all the lines you want to indent individually.
Although this is not a perfect technique, this workaround still gets the job done. Use it when you really need it.
What is the Keyboard Shortcut to Indent in Excel?
You can quickly add indents to your cells using these keyboard shortcuts.
Highlight the cells you want to indent and use these shortcuts:
For right-indent: Alt+H+6
For left-indent: Alt+H+5
This will immediately apply the standard indent of three spaces to the selected line of text.
Suggested Reads:
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Let’s Wrap Up
That’s everything about how to indent in Excel. Test these methods in a practice worksheet and feel free to ask any questions or doubts you may have in the comments section.
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Adam Lacey
Adam Lacey is an Excel enthusiast and online learning expert. He combines these two passions at Simon Sez IT where he wears a number of different hats.When Adam isn't fretting about site traffic or Pivot Tables, you'll find him on the tennis court or in the kitchen cooking up a storm.
