Excel cannot do what you want with single columns. The cells in a column are
always all the same width. I presume you meant width across the sheet when
you said "length".

You can make individual rows taller, so you could possibly set row 3's
Format | Cells | Alignment tab property to turn Wrap Text on, or use the
Shrink to Fit option on the Alignment tab?

One other option is to do some redesign of the sheet and make the columns
narrow so that you have to use several columns to hold what you are now
putting into a single column if you want entries to occupy just a single row
without text wrapping and making the row(s) taller. You just start your
headers across the top far enough apart to allow for the entries below them
to spread across several columns. You can then take up more columns with an
entry below the headers when necessary with minimum 'waste' of sheet width.
You might even investigate the Merge Cells feature to get things to look a
little neater. Picture something like this:

A B C D E F G H I K L M
1 Header 1 Header 2 Header 3
2 data 1 data 2 longer data 3
3 data-a data b.1.2.3 under header 3 again

instead of the more 'conventional'
A B C D
1 Header 1 Header 2 Header 3
2 data 1 data 2 longer data 3
3 data-a data b.1.2.3 under header 3 again

"Kent" wrote:

I am trying to creste a template for staff pers details and equipment serial
numbers. The problem I am facing is that I need to somehow customise the rows
and columns to accodate different sizes and positioning.ie I may have an
initial first row with 4 headings and under the blank for input, then on the
third rown I need cellA3 to increase its length to allow for more information
than was needed for cellA1+2 but I dont want to change cells A1+2 size just
cell A3. I apologise if this is confusing but if you could help it would be
appreciated thx