Master the GMetrix Data Modeling Challenge 2026 – Shape Your Data Destiny!

To insert a new line inside a single cell, you must create a line break within that cell while editing it. The shortcut to do this on Windows applications like Excel is Alt+Enter. This inserts a newline character so the text spans multiple lines in the same cell.

If you press Enter alone, you finish editing and move to another cell, so you don’t get multiple lines in the one cell. Ctrl+Enter doesn’t add a line break within a cell; it typically repeats the same value into multiple selected cells or behaves differently depending on context. Shift+Enter moves to the cell above rather than inserting a newline inside the current cell. On a Mac, the equivalent shortcut is Option+Enter.