I'm not sure why anyone told you to use F2. That puts you into edit mode in the
formula bar. It has nothing to do with wrapping text in the cell.

And I think that each time I've used alt-enter, excel has turned on wrap text
(if it's not already on) for that cell.

Maybe you're thinking of merging cells so that you can have the appearance of a
wide cell (when other cells in that column are narrow) and still use wrap
text?????

jbclem3 wrote:

Alt-Enter only seems to force a new line if I've used F2 first to wrap the
text. A year ago, I was told to use F2 and then Alt-Enter to end the
process, but that seems to have been incorrect. Using F2 makes a perfect
word-wrap, but I haven't figured out how to get out of that mode.

I tried the other way, setting the Alignment to Wrap Text, but what that
does is wrap the text into a column, so I ended up with a long column of
words stretching downward off the screen.

Can you tell me how to use the F2 mode correctly?

"Dave Peterson" wrote in message
...
alt-enter is used to force a new line in a cell.

If you want to wrap the text at a specific location in that string,
alt-enter is
very useful.

If you want to let excel wrap the text where it thinks it should, just:

Select the cell
Format|cells|Alignment tab|check Wrap Text



jbclem3 wrote:

Using Excel 2002...I pasted in a long sentence, and it goes off the
right
side of the screen. I know that I can make it word wrap by hitting F2.
I've done that and it works nicely. But I was told that I could end
this
process by hitting Alt-Enter, and that doesn't work... all that happens
after Alt-Enter is a blank new row opens up below the word-wrapped rows.
If
I hit Alt-Enter again, another blank row opens up below. How can I end
this
F2 word-wrap and go on with other business.

John

--

Dave Peterson

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Dave Peterson