How to Change Row Height in Excel (5 Easy Ways)

Excel has cells that are neatly divided into rows and columns in a worksheet.

And when you start working with data in Excel, one of the common tasks you have to do is to adjust the row height in Excel based on your data (or adjust the column width).

It’s a really simple thing to do, and in this short Excel tutorial I will show you five ways to change row height in Excel

Change the Row Height with Click and Drag (Using the Mouse)

The easiest and the most popular method to change row height in Excel is to use the mouse.

Suppose you have a data set as shown below, and you want to change the row height of the third row (so that the entire text is visible in the row).

Below are the steps to use the mouse to change the row height in Excel:

1. Place the cursor at the bottom edge of the row header for which you want to change the height. You will notice that the cursor would change into a plus icon
2. With the cursor on the bottom edge of the row header, press the left mouse key.
3. Keep the mouse key pressed and drag it down to increase the row height (or drag it up to decrease the row height)
4. Leave the mouse key when done

This is an easy way to change the row height in Excel and is a good method if you only have to do it for one row or a couple of rows.

You can also do this for multiple rows. Just select all the rows for which you want to increase/decrease the height and use the cursor and drag (for any of the selected rows).

One drawback of this method is that it doesn’t give consistent results every time you change the row height. For example, if you change the row height for one row and then again for another row it may not be the same (it may be close but may not exactly be the same)

Let’s look at more methods that are more precise and can be used when you have to change the row height of multiple rows in one go.

Also read: How to Copy Column Widths in Excel (Shortcut)

Using the Mouse Double Click Method

If you want Excel to automatically adjust the row height in such a way that the text nicely fits within the cell, this is the fastest and the easiest method.

Suppose you have a data set as shown below, and you want to change the row height of the third row (so that the entire text is visible in the row).

Below are the steps to automatically adjust the row height using mouse double-click:

1. Place the cursor at the bottom edge of the row header for which you want to change the height. You will notice that the cursor would change into a plus icon
2. With the cursor on the bottom edge of the row alphabet, double click (press the left mouse key in quick succession)
3. Leave the mouse key when done

When you double-click the mouse key, it automatically expands or contracts the row height to make sure that it is enough to display all the text within the cell.

You can also do this for a range of cells.

For example, if you have multiple cells and you need to at just the row height for all the cells, select the row header for these cells and double-click on the edge of any of the rows.

Also read: How to Move Rows and Columns in Excel

Manually Setting the Row Height

You can specify the exact row height you want for a row (or multiple rows).

Let’s say you have a data set as shown below, and you want to increase the row height of all the rows in the data set.

Below are the steps to do this:

1. Select all the rows by clicking and dragging on the row headers (or select the cells in a column for all the rows for which you want to change the height)
2. Click the Home tab
3. in the Cells group, click on the Format option
4. In the dropdown, click on the Row Height option.
5. In the Row Height dialog box, enter the height that you want for each of these selected rows. For this example, I would go with 50.
6. Click on OK

The above steps would change the row height of all the selected rows to 50 (the default row height on my system was 14.4)

While you can use the previously covered mouse double click method as well, the difference with this method is that all your rows are of the same height (which some people find better)

Keyboard Shortcut To Specify the Row Height

If you prefer using a keyboard shortcut instead, this method is for you.

Below is the keyboard shortcut that will open the row height dialog box where you can manually insert the row height value that you want

ALT + H + O + H (press one after the other)

Let’s say you have a data set as shown below and you want to increase the row height of all the rows in the data set.

Below are the steps to use this keyboard shortcut to change the row height:

1. Select the cells in a column for all the rows for which you want to change the height
2. Use the keyboard shortcut – ALT + H + O + H
3. In the Row Height dialog box that opens, enter the height that you want for each of these selected rows. For this example, I would go with 50.
4. Click on OK

A lot of people prefer this method as you don’t have to leave your keyboard to change the row height (if you have a certain height value in mind that you want to apply for all the selected cells).

While this may look like a long keyboard shortcut, if you get used to it, it’s faster than the other methods covered above.

Autofit Rows

Most of the methods covered so far are dependent on the user specifying the row height (either by clicking and dragging or by entering the value of the row height in the dialog box).

But in many cases, you don’t want to manually do this.

Sometimes you just need to make sure that the row height adjusts to make sure that the text is visible.

This is where you can use the autofit feature.

Suppose you have a data set as shown below where there is more text in each cell and the additional text is being cut off because the height of the cell is not enough.

Below are the steps to use autofit to increase the row height to fit the text in it:

1. Select the rows that you want to autofit
2. Click the Home tab
3. In the Cells group, click on the Format option. Doing this will show an additional dropdown of options
4. Click on the Autofit Row Height option

The above steps would change the row height and auto fit the text in such a way that all the text in these rows would now be visible.

In case you change the column height, the row height would automatically adjust to make sure that there are no extra spaces within the row.

There are more ways to use autofit in Excel, and you can read more about it here.

Can We Change the Default Row Height in Excel?

While it would be great to have an option to set the default row height, unfortunately as of writing this article, there is no way to set the default row height.

The Excel version that I’m using currently (Microsoft 365) has the default row height value of 14.4.

One of the articles I found online suggested that I can change the default font size and that would automatically change the row height.

While this does seem to work, it’s too messy (given that it only takes a few seconds to change the row height by any of the methods I’ve covered above in this tutorial)

Bottom line – there is no way to set the default row height in Excel of now.

And since it’s quite easy to change the row height and the column width, I don’t expect Excel to have this feature anytime soon (or ever).

In this tutorial, I’ve shown you 5 easy ways to quickly change the row height (by using the mouse, a keyboard shortcut, or by using the autofit feature).

All the methods covered here can also be used to change the column width as well.

I hope you found this tutorial useful.

Other Excel Tutorials you may like:

• How to Delete All Hidden Rows and Columns in Excel
• How to Indent in Excel
• How to Wrap Text in Excel (with a shortcut, One Click, and a Formula)
• Insert a Blank Row after Every Row in Excel (or Every Nth Row)
• Delete Rows Based on a Cell Value (or Condition) in Excel
• How to Lock Row Height & Column Width in Excel