Excel – Split one cell to multiple rows

There are times when you have an excel sheet which has multiple lines of text in a single cell, which has been split using a carriage return. NOTE: I’m not talking about text which has wrapped due to the size or formatting of the cell.

If you need to separate the contents of this single cell, into one row per line then this is the macro for you. NOTE: This macro will insert rows into your sheet so you may have to “fix” the layout afterwards. Save your sheet before you run this just in case.

The first function processes the current cell – use this if you only have one cell which you want to split.

Public Sub SplitCellToRows()
    arrValues = Split(ActiveCell.Value, vbLf)
    For i = UBound(arrValues) To LBound(arrValues) Step -1
        'MsgBox i & " " & arrValues(i)
        If i > 0 Then
            ActiveCell.Offset(1).Resize(1).EntireRow.Insert (1)
        End If
        ActiveCell.Offset(Sgn(i)).Value = arrValues(i)
    Next i
End Sub

If you have multiple cells which you want to split out then there is a wrapper macro which will call this multiple times.

Public Sub SplitCellToRows_Multiple()
    For Each cell In ActiveCell.CurrentRegion.Cells
        cell.Select
        SplitCellToRows
    Next cell
End Sub

To use, simply highlight one or more cells and then run the appropriate macro.