Use a linebreak in Excel on Mac

Sometimes you need a linebreak in an Excel spreadsheet cell, but when you hit return or enter it always jumps you to a new cell. On Windows, you can just hit alt-return (or maybe alt-enter; if one doesn’t work, try the other). On Mac, you’ll need to hit control-option-return.

Took me a while to figure this out, and I figured it could be useful for others. Enjoy!

71 Responses

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I. says:

Cool! Thanks for the tip. I was searching the help section and amazingly enough I didn’t find anything!

Ian Beck says:

If they put that kind of info in the help, then anyone might be able to use the program. :-)

Rob says:

Thanks, it definitely helped me!

Mike says:

Thanks so much. I was just banging my head against my desk trying to figure out why this string didn’t exist. You just saved me about 45 minutes of work-around hell.

margaret francis says:

thanks! recently switched from PC to mac and the lack of this shortcut was maddening….

Sonia says:

You’re a lifesaver!

Leigh says:

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Ian Beck says:

Glad you guys found this useful!

Mikke says:

Add my voice to the thanks. Though it did give me yet another chance to practice my Port Town Poetry on Excel.

drewvy says:

Thanks for that one (CTRL+OPTN+ENTER for line break in Excel cell).

And, I LOVE the “track me like a stalker” bit. Too funny.

CHEERS,
Drew

sonja says:

one more reason I really, really hate ms*ft products. Because of course sometime someone is going to want to put a line break in a cell, but why on earth would they make it either easy or intuitive???

Thank you for this work around … I was getting ready to throw things, but not my MBP :)

Kate says:

Glad to have found this, however, on my MacBook keyboard Control+Option+Enter doesn’t work…Command+Option+Enter does!!!

Cheers,
Kate

Brent says:

THANK YOU! This was driving me nuts.

Barry Chertov says:

Blessings to you, your family and friends for all time!

Thanks!

Jen says:

Thank you so much for sharing this! I bookmarked you just in case I ever forget :) Thanks again, you saved me lots of aggravation!

Megs says:

Thanks, that was a huge help! like you said, you’d think they’d have put that in the help section. Thank goodness for friendly (virtual) neighborhood bloggers!

Pancho L says:

Thank you very much!! Sometimes you think things like these are going to be really to find out for yourself, but you find yourself pressing every available key with enter and when nothing happens you can get really frustated!!!
Thanks again!

Jezabel says:

Thank you so much. I needed to know this for a work project. Now if only you could explain the LOST finale.

vcrmchl says:

So useful! Much appreciated.

sama says:

just the thing I was looking for.

thx!

Henry says:

Thanks for the info. I agree that this is a poor shortcut, and poorly documented.

Alex says:

Thanks so much for this! I spent a good 15 minutes searching all over the web with no luck (plus at least that much time asking various people in my office!)

CH says:

Thank you!!

Theo Short says:

I’ve been trying to find the solution to this for months – thank you so much!

Larry says:

You have my un-dying gratitude…

I love the ‘Net.
I love Google.
I love you.

Microsoft? Eh…not so much.

amanda says:

You’re the best!

George MENOMPARAMPIL says:

Thanx! Wonder why such a useful tip is kept secret.

Joe says:

Thanks! This was driving me crazy! You’ve lowered my stress level (at least by a little!).

HM says:

Thank you so much for this tip! Such a common necessity and yet hard to find!

Wendy Hollands says:

Thank you: I’d been trying every other combo for this, but thanks to Google and your blog, I found the solution. :)

tiny says:

THANK YOU! it was killin’ me, :)

Børre Bratvold says:

As Larry said:
You have my un-dying gratitude…

I love the ‘Net.
I love Google.
I love you.

Pinchvalve says:

Now if there was a character (like ^l and ^p in the PC versions) so we could do a universal find and replace.

Gregory says:

Wow. Many thanks for this information.

Daniel says:

Thank you for the tip
D – Portugal

Bill says:

What about removing a line break in an Excel for Mac cell?

Bill says:

FOUND IT!!!

=SUBSTITUTE(CELLS,CHAR(13),”")

=SUBSTITUTE(CELLS,CHAR(10),”")

Karen says:

Here’s another thank you. This has annoyed the #$!! out of me for years. I finally decided to look for a solution and here you are helping to make me just a little less crazy.

Kurt says:

And another Thank you! Timeless info, you posted this over two years ago and still helping folks every day. Cheers!

Enrique says:

Hi all,
I have a document with over 1,000 subtitles for a film (I have it in both Word and Excel versions).
Most of the subtitles have 2 lines, which are separated with this character: |
In Word (Windows or Mac), I can easily replace all the | with a line break (^p).
How can I do it in Excel for Mac?
Is there a way to represent the line break within the Excel “Replace” tool, just like ^p in the Word “Replace” tool?
Or is there a way to paste a Word table (which has line breaks within the table cells) into Excel, keeping the line breaks?
Thanks!
Enrique.
eleonb@gmail.com

Karen S says:

Thanks, Beck. You rock. Now why couldn’t Excel Help have answered this with such straightforward simplicity?

Erin f. says:

Wow, you wrote this 4 years ago and it was the first hit! Obviously a popular problem. Thanks!

Ben Bland says:

Aces, thank you. I tried all the single key combinations and I sure as hell didn’t want to go down that old two-key road without Googling the problem first. Just think of the protracted agony you’ve saved me. It makes me weep.

Yasha says:

looks like you’re going to get thankyous till the end of time – and you deserve it, of course!

Derakevi says:

Thank you sooooo much!

Zeke says:

Exactly what I was looking for – thanks!

Jocelyn says:

Thank you! I was having the same problem trying to negotiate the mac to perform this action using two key combinations (based on my prior PC knowledge). When I googled help your instruction was the first thing that popped up :) love when it’s that easy.

RJ says:

Thanks!

Aydin says:

Thank you! New on Mac Excel, after more than 10 years of Windows!
I had no idea on how to do it, and definitely no clue on the possibility of using 2 keys!

THANX

Crystal says:

Thank you…. This was exactly what i needed. :)

Na says:

awesome – thanks!

Carlos says:

I couldn’t figure it out, thanks!

Allen says:

Three and a half years on, it’s STILL helping people like me.

NB says:

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Trainace says:

Thank you alt-ctrl-return works on 2011 version.

Phil says:

I’m an Excel power user but I’m new to the Mac version. This little nugget of help was brilliant in the simple way it was written. Thanks!

Ann says:

Beyond Fabulous, Thanks! I’m making the switch from PC to Mac and this was making me nuts. You are a true lifesaver.

Juliet says:

Oh yes. Can’t thank you enough. And big thanks to whoever it was pointed out the MacBook keyboard variation. Heroes, one and all!

Lori says:

Thank you!

Mark says:

Sweet, so annoying they can’t make keyboard shortcuts consistent between Office for PC and Mac! It’s not like alt enter does anything in Excel 2011…

mike says:

Thank you so much. It is so helpful to have knowledgeable people willing to put this stuff out there so dummies like me can find it …….. and save my sanity!!

Mike F says:

I’m yet another grateful recipient of this tip.

Moony says:

Thanks, it helps :)

James H says:

Many thanks to you and to Google for directing me instantly to this fix. All the best!

ab says:

Thank you! Very helpful…

Sharon says:

oooh thank you

Ian says:

THANK YOU!

Dee says:

Lifesaver! THANK YOU for posting this!!!!

Jose says:

Very Helpful. Thank you!

Abdullatif says:

Thanks, it definitely helped me

Michael says:

Thank you so much. Ditto to the other responses, why don’t they put these things in the help menu. Anyone got a key combination for inserting a page break?

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