Who wants to read a paragraph of information? In the world of spreadsheets, keeping your comments short and readable is everything. That’s why it helps to use bullet points in Excel.
Bullet points in Excel help make your spreadsheet more readable. Let’s learn how to use them so that your spreadsheet is never overly wordy.
How to Add Bullet Points in Excel
Let’s take a look at an example of when bullet points in Excel come in handy. In the example below from a Microsoft template, a paragraph explains the purpose of a tab.
In a world of ever-decreasing attention spans, paragraphs like this in Excel are probably skimmed over. But if you turn it into an easy-to-scan list of facts, it’s much more likely to be reviewed.
Let’s “bulletize” this lengthy paragraph. Let’s start by breaking out the sentences to new lines. Double-click inside the cell, then place your text cursor just before any sentence to move to a new line.
On Windows, press Alt + Enter on your keyboard to break text onto a new line. The macOS keyboard shortcut is Control + Option + Enter.
Now, let’s add the bullet points. Again, double-click in a cell and place your mouse cursor in the position you wish to add a new bullet point. Click on the Insert menu and find the Symbol section on the far right side.
You’ll see a new pop-up window with symbols. It’s a huge menu, so the easiest way to navigate and find the bullet point is to type 2022 in the Character code box. The window will jump directly to the bullet point character. Click Insert to add it to your spreadsheet.
Now, you’ve added a bullet point to your spreadsheet. Instead of going back into the Insert menu, you can now highlight and copy-paste bullet points to add more.
Use these bullet points to keep the key facts in an easy-to-read format. It’s the best way to split up thick paragraphs of text in Excel.
Split Cells in Excel