If you’re accustomed to Microsoft Word, you probably get frustrated at the lack of word-processing features in Excel. Of course, Excel isn’t meant for extensive text. The application’s primary purpose involves data analysis and calculations. But if you do want to include some text in your Excel spreadsheet, you can indent a cell’s text.

In Word, you’d use the [Tab] key to indent your text — but as you already know, pressing [Tab] in Excel simply moves your cell selector one cell to the right.

Follow these steps to indent a cell’s text in Excel:

1. Select the cell(s) you want to indent.
2. Press [Ctrl]1 to open the Format Cells dialog box.
3. Click on the Alignment tab.
4. In the Text Alignment section, increase the number in the Indent spin box, depending on how much you want to indent your text. We’ll change the Indent value to 3.
5. Click OK to apply the indentation.

As you can see from our example in Figure A, the cells you selected now indent their text. This formatting works well for lists and outlines.

 

Filed under: Microsoft Office Tutor