There are several settings in Excel that you can change to help make manual data entry easier. Some changes affect all workbooks, some affect the whole worksheet, and some affect only the cells that you specify.
Change the direction for the Enter key
When you press Tab to enter data in several cells in a row and then press Enter at the end of that row, by default, the selection moves to the start of the next row.
Pressing Enter moves the selection down one cell, and pressing Tab moves the selection one cell to the right. You cannot change the direction of the move for the Tab key, but you can specify a different direction for the Enter key. Changing this setting affects the whole worksheet, any other open worksheets, any other open workbooks, and all new workbooks.
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On the File tab, click Options.
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In the Advanced category, under Editing options, select the After pressing Enter, move selection check box, and then click the direction that you want in the Direction box.
Change the width of a column
At times, a cell might display #####. This can occur when the cell contains a number or a date and the width of its column cannot display all the characters that its format requires. For example, suppose a cell with the Date format "mm/dd/yyyy" contains 12/31/2015. However, the column is only wide enough to display six characters. The cell will display #####. To see the entire contents of the cell with its current format, you must increase the width of the column.
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Click the cell for which you want to change the column width.
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On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format.
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Under Cell Size, do one of the following:
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To fit all text in the cell, click AutoFit Column Width.
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To specify a larger column width, click Column Width, and then type the width that you want in the Column width box.
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Note:As an alternative to increasing the width of a column, you can change the format of that column or even an individual cell. For example, you could change the date format so that a date is displayed as only the month and day ("mm/dd" format), such as 12/31, or represent a number in a Scientific (exponential) format, such as 4E+08.
Wrap text in a cell
You can display multiple lines of text inside a cell by wrapping the text. Wrapping text in a cell does not affect other cells.
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Click the cell in which you want to wrap the text.
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On the Home tab, in the Alignment group, click Wrap Text.
Note:If the text is a long word, the characters won't wrap (the word won't be split); instead, you can widen the column or decrease the font size to see all the text. If all the text is not visible after you wrap the text, you might have to adjust the height of the row. On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format, and then under Cell Size click AutoFit Row.
For more information on wrapping text, see the article Wrap text in a cell.
Change the format of a number
In Excel, the format of a cell is separate from the data that is stored in the cell. This display difference can have a significant effect when the data is numeric. For example, when a number that you enter is rounded, usually only the displayed number is rounded. Calculations use the actual number that is stored in the cell, not the formatted number that is displayed. Hence, calculations might appear inaccurate because of rounding in one or more cells.
After you type numbers in a cell, you can change the format in which they are displayed.
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Click the cell that contains the numbers that you want to format.
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On the Home tab, in the Number group, click the arrow next to the Number Format box, and then click the format that you want.
To select a number format from the list of available formats, click More Number Formats, and then click the format that you want to use in the Category list.
Format a number as text
For numbers that should not be calculated in Excel, such as phone numbers, you can format them as text by applying the Text format to empty cells before typing the numbers.
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Select an empty cell.
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On the Home tab, in the Number group, click the arrow next to the Number Format box, and then click Text.
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Type the numbers that you want in the formatted cell.
Numbers that you entered before you applied the Text format to the cells must be entered again in the formatted cells. To quickly reenter numbers as text, select each cell, press F2, and then press Enter.
