Section 9. Changing Column Width and Row Height

Often you will find that you need to adjust your column or row size to accommodate large amounts of data or large type sizes. With Google Spreadsheets you can adjust your column and row size with either the mouse or the keyboard—or you can let Google adjust the size to automatically fit your data.

Changing Column Width

Using a mouse to change column width is similar to changing the size of a window in any Windows application. Follow these steps:

1. Use your mouse to move the cursor to the heading area at the top of the column you want to adjust.
2. Move the cursor to the line on the right border of the column. The cursor now changes shape and the border changes to a blue color, as shown in Figure 21.

   Figure 21 Adjusting column width.

   

3. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the line to the right (to widen the column) or the left (to shrink the column).
4. Release the mouse button to accept the new column width.

Changing Row Height

There is normally less call to change the height of rows than there is to change the width of columns, primarily because Google automatically adjusts the row height to accommodate different type sizes. However, if you want to change row height for effect, the operation is identical to that used to change column width. Follow these steps:

1. Use your mouse to move the cursor to the heading area at the left of the row you want to adjust.
2. Move the cursor to the line on the bottom border of the row. The cursor now changes shape and the border changes to a blue color, as shown in Figure 22.

   Figure 22 Adjusting row height.

   

3. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the line up or down until the row is the desired height.
4. Release the mouse button to accept the new row height.