XL: Text with Shrink To Fit Format May Disappear or Grow in Size

• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
• Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

When you apply the Shrink To Fit alignment format to a cell in a worksheet in the versions of Microsoft Excel that are listed at the beginning of this article, either of the following problems may occur:

• The text completely disappears from the cell.
• The text increases in size and is cut off by the border of the cell.

CAUSE

These problems may occur when the following conditions are true:

• The cell contains a large amount of text (for example, 60 or more characters).

  -and-

• The cell is not wide enough to display all of the text you want to shrink.

WORKAROUND

To work around these problems, increase the column width of the cell or reduce the amount of text in the cell.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

In the versions of Microsoft Excel listed at the beginning of this article, use the Shrink To Fit format to automatically scale text in a cell so that it fits within the cell. As you increase or decrease the amount of text in the cell, or as you adjust the width of the cell, Microsoft Excel automatically resizes the text to fit within the cell.

When Microsoft Excel resizes text that uses the Shrink To Fit format, it must resize the text to a whole-number point size. If the point size is too small (for example, 1 or 2 points), the text may disappear from the cell. In Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, the text may grow in size and be truncated by the border of the cell.