When using excel, text all runs together with no spaces recognized. How to fix?

Question

When using excel, as I type text, it all runs together with no spaces recognized. How to fix?

Answer 1

You can disregard what the AI bot spewed forth. There is nothing in Excel which causes this.

The typical cause is that Full Keyboard Access is enabled in **> System Settings> Accessibility> Motor - Keyboard**.

Toggling that Off will resolve the issue for new entries but existing content will have to be re-entered.

Answer 2

In Excel for Mac, this usually happens when text is not wrapping or the cell alignment/spacing makes the text appear as a single block.

Try these steps to improve how the text displays:

1. Turn on Wrap Text so spaces and line breaks are visible within the cell:
   1. Select the affected cells.
   2. On the Home tab, select Wrap Text.
   3. If some text is still hidden, on the Format menu, point to Row, then select AutoFit so the row height adjusts.
2. Adjust alignment or rotation if text looks compressed or oddly positioned:
   1. Select the cells.
   2. On the Format menu, select Cells.
   3. On the Alignment tab:
      • Set Horizontal to a standard option such as Left or General.
      • Set Vertical to Top, Center, or Bottom (avoid Justify if it spreads lines strangely).
      • Make sure text is not rotated to an extreme angle under Orientation.
3. Reduce font size to fit if the column is narrow and text appears jammed:
   1. Select the cells.
   2. Right-click and select Format Cells.
   3. On the Alignment tab, enable Shrink to fit so Excel scales the font to the column width.

If the issue is caused by inconsistent spacing or formatting in imported text, use Copilot’s Clean Data feature (Data → Clean Data) to normalize spacing and formatting.

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References:

• Fix data that is cut off in cells in Excel for Mac
• Change line spacing
• Clean up your data with Copilot in Excel