✅ How to Remove Line Breaks in Excel (Step-by-Step)

Line breaks (also called carriage returns or newlines) often sneak into Excel cells when you’re copying from Word, web pages, or using Alt+Enter to start a new line inside a cell.

These can mess up formulas, formatting, and data exports.


🧹 Method 1: Use Find and Replace (Quickest Way)

🔹 Steps:

  1. Select the range of cells (or entire sheet).
  2. Press Ctrl + H to open Find and Replace.
  3. In Find what, hold Ctrl and press J.
    (This inserts a line break — you won’t see anything, but it’s there.)
  4. In Replace with, type a space or nothing (if you want to delete the line break).
  5. Click Replace All.

Done! All line breaks will be removed or replaced.


🧠 Tip:

Use a space in “Replace with” if you want to separate words, else words may merge.

Before:
Amit\nSharma → Looks like:

Amit  
Sharma

After (Replace with space):
Amit Sharma


🧮 Method 2: Use a Formula

You can also remove line breaks using a formula with the SUBSTITUTE function.

🧪 Formula:

=SUBSTITUTE(A1, CHAR(10), " ")
  • CHAR(10) is the line break character (LF = Line Feed).
  • Replace " " with "" if you want to remove the break without adding space.

Then copy-paste as values if needed.


🔁 Method 3: Power Query (For Advanced Users)

If you’re working with imported datasets:

  1. Go to DataGet & TransformFrom Table/Range
  2. In Power Query Editor, select the column
  3. Use TransformReplace Values
  4. Replace line break: enter Ctrl + J in “Value to Find”
  5. Replace with a space or empty string
  6. Click Close & Load

📌 Bonus: Removing Line Breaks in Google Sheets?

Use:

=SUBSTITUTE(A1, CHAR(10), " ")

Or:

=REGEXREPLACE(A1, "\n", " ")