Excel: Indent Text Within A Cell

Pressing [Tab] in Excel doesn't indent text in a cell--it simply moves the cell pointer to the next cell. Beginning Excel users might hard-code the indent by pressing the spacebar several times before entering text into a cell. However, this approach can cause problems.

To indent text in a spreadsheet cell, use the Formatting toolbar's Increase Indent button. Enter your text without any lead spaces, select the cells whose entries you want to indent, and click the Increase Indent button. Each time you click the button, Excel nudges the selected text to the right. If you go too far, you can click the Decrease Indent button to nudge the text back toward the left.

If your text entry extends beyond the right edge of the cell, you'll probably want to change the cell's text alignment so the text wraps within the cell. To change the text alignment, select the cell, and go to Format | Cells | Alignment. In the Text Control section, select Wrap Text, and click OK. Excel then indents all of the lines of text in the cell.