Easy Excel Shortcut to Quickly Adjust Column Width

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Are you tired of manually dragging the edges of columns in Microsoft Excel to resize them? There’s a quick and easy shortcut to adjust column width in Excel with just a double-click. In this article, we’ll show you step-by-step how to use this handy Excel trick to speed up your spreadsheet formatting.

Key Takeaways

• Double-click the right edge of a column header to auto-fit it to the contents
• Select multiple columns with Shift + click or Ctrl + click to auto-fit several at once
• Use Alt + H + O + I to auto-fit columns via keyboard shortcut
• The same techniques work for row heights too
• Enable AutoFit to automatically resize columns as you enter data
• Reset columns to the default width through the Format menu

The Easy Excel Shortcut to Adjust Column Width

Here’s the quick and simple shortcut to perfectly resize any column in Excel to fit its contents:

1. Select the column or columns you want to resize
2. Double-click on the right edge of any selected column header

That’s it! Excel will instantly auto-fit the selected columns to the width of their longest entry. No more manual dragging required.

This shortcut works for both individual columns and multiple columns at once. To auto-fit several adjacent columns:

1. Click on the header of the first column you want to resize
2. Hold down the Shift key
3. Click on the header of the last column you want to resize (the columns in between will also be selected)
4. Double-click any of the selected column header right edges

All of the highlighted columns will snap to fit their contents. You can resize non-adjacent columns as well by holding down the Ctrl key instead of Shift when selecting the column headers.

Keyboard Shortcut for Adjusting Column Width

If you prefer using your keyboard instead of your mouse, you can use this Excel keyboard shortcut to auto-fit column width:

1. Select the column or columns to resize
2. Press Alt + H + O + I

This will access the “Autofit Column Width” command, producing the same result as double-clicking the column edge. The keyboard shortcut works for both Windows and Mac versions of Excel.

Adjusting Row Height with a Shortcut

Now that you know how to quickly resize columns in Excel, you may be wondering how to do the same for row height. There’s a similar built-in shortcut:

1. Select the row or rows you want to resize
2. Double-click the bottom edge of any selected row header

Excel will auto-fit the row height to neatly contain the tallest entry in the selected rows. You can use Shift + click or Ctrl + click to select multiple rows at once, just like with columns.

The keyboard shortcut to autofit row height is Alt + H + O + A. This resizes selected rows to match their contents.

Limitations of the Autofit Shortcut

The autofit column width and row height shortcuts are very convenient, but there are a couple limitations to keep in mind:

• Merged cells – If a column or row contains merged cells, the autofit shortcut will size to fit the merged cell. This may result in a column or row that is wider or taller than needed for the rest of the entries.
• Wrapped text – By default, the autofit shortcuts will make a column wide enough or a row tall enough to fully display text without wrapping. If you have intentionally wrapped text in a cell, the auto-resize may make columns extremely wide or rows very tall.

In these cases, you’re better off manually adjusting column width or row height by clicking and dragging the header edge. But in most cases, the auto-fit shortcuts work great.

Adjusting All Columns or Rows at Once

What if you want to auto-fit the width of every column or height of every row in your spreadsheet? You could select all the individual column or row headers with Ctrl + click, but there’s an even faster way:

1. Click the rectangle in the upper-left corner of the spreadsheet between the “A” column header and the “1” row header to select the entire sheet
2. Double-click any column header edge to auto-fit all columns or any row header bottom to auto-fit all rows

You can auto-fit all columns and rows in one shot with this trick. It’s a big time-saver if you’ve pasted data into a new spreadsheet and want to quickly format it.

Distributing Column Width Evenly

Sometimes you may want all your columns to have the same width, regardless of the length of their contents. There’s an Excel command for that too:

1. Select the columns you want to make the same size
2. Go to the Home tab on the ribbon
3. In the Cells group, click Format
4. Under Cell Size, choose Column Width…
5. Enter a width value and click OK

This will set all the selected columns to a fixed, equal width that you specify. Note that this is different than auto-fitting, which matches column width to content. The “Distribute Columns Evenly” button on the Format menu is another way to equalize column widths.

Automatically Resizing Columns as You Enter Data

Excel has a handy feature called AutoFit that will automatically adjust column width as you type, so the columns always perfectly contain their contents. To enable AutoFit:

1. Select the columns where you want to apply AutoFit
2. Go to the Home tab
3. In the Cells group, click Format
4. Hover over AutoFit Column Width
5. Click AutoFit

Now the selected columns will automatically resize larger or smaller as you enter or delete data in those columns. This is super convenient if you know you’ll be adding a lot of variable-length content and don’t want to keep manually resizing.

To turn off AutoFit, just repeat the steps above and click “AutoFit” again to toggle it off for the selected columns.

Fixing Columns at a Specific Width

In some cases, you may want to “lock” one or more columns at a set width to keep your spreadsheet formatted a certain way. You can specify an exact column width as follows:

1. Select the column or columns
2. Right-click any selected column header and choose Column Width…
3. Enter a numeric value for the width and click OK

The selected columns will now stay at that fixed width regardless of their contents. No auto-fitting will be applied to those columns unless you change the width again manually.

Restoring Columns to Default Width

If you’ve resized columns and later want to restore them to Excel’s default column width, you can easily do so:

1. Select the columns you want to restore
2. Go to the Home tab
3. In the Cells group, click Format
4. Under Cell Size, choose Default Width…
5. The default width of 8.43 will be entered, click OK

This resets selected columns to Excel’s standard width, which is typically wide enough to contain about 8-10 characters in the default font.

Wrapping Up

Knowing how to effortlessly resize columns in Excel is essential for creating neat, readable, and print-ready spreadsheets. The auto-fit column width shortcut you learned in this article will save you a ton of time and tedium, especially combined with the other tips for auto-fitting row height, distributing columns evenly, using AutoFit as you type, and more.

Try out these techniques the next time you’re formatting an Excel sheet and enjoy how much quicker and easier it is! With a little practice, adjusting column widths will become second nature and your spreadsheets will look polished and professional.

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Vaishvi Desai

Vaishvi Desai is the founder of Excelsamurai and a passionate Excel enthusiast with years of experience in data analysis and spreadsheet management. With a mission to help others harness the power of Excel, Vaishvi shares her expertise through concise, easy-to-follow tutorials on shortcuts, formulas, Pivot Tables, and VBA.