How to Adjust Column Widths in Excel

The video guide gives a comprehensive list of methods for adjusting column widths. These include two methods for auto-adjusting the column width to fit existing text entries.

A common problem when creating Excel tables is that you can auto-fit columns to entries that already exist but not those that might exist in the future. It is not always practical for future users to re-adjust column widths. The video shows one solution which is to wrap within cells when entries do not fit within a single line. However, this can disrupt a user's ability to browse the data and is not always the best compromise.

An alternative method is to format the cells as Shrink to Fit. This means the font size of entries will reduce so that the data can always be displayed in full on a single row within the cell's current width. If the font size reduces too much it will become unreadable so this is best reserved for situations where entries will only just exceed the available width. Our experts find it most useful for columns containing amounts. A column that generally contains figures below $1,000,000 with the occasional exception is a good candidate. Assuming the exceptions are always below $10m, you only ever need to display one more digit at the start of the number so the font size will never reduce that much.

Another method that can be useful is to orient text vertically instead of horizontally. This is only practical for table headers but, if you have a table column containing Yes/No entries, then you may wish to keep the column very narrow. If the header reads something like 'Compliant?' then orienting the text vertically means you can still see the header once you've reduced the width of the column.