In this tutorial, you will learn how to indent text in Google Sheets.
How to Indent Text in Google Sheets
If you have a lot of data in a spreadsheet, it can be helpful to organize it in a neat and tidy way. One way to do this is to use indentation to make it easier to differentiate between different levels of information.
For example, let’s say you have a list of tasks, and you want to show which tasks are part of a larger project. You can use indentation to make it easier for users to see the hierarchy of the tasks.
In this guide, we will show you how to indent text in Google Sheets to easily organize your data.
How to Add an Indentation in Google Sheets
Here’s our step-by-step guide on how to add an indentation in Google Sheets.
Step 1
We’ll first explain how to use custom number formatting to indent text in specific cells.
First, select the cells you want to indent.

In the example above, we want to indent all subtopics under each topic.
Step 2
Next, click on the number formatting icon in the toolbar and select “Custom number format”.

Step 3
In the provided textbox, add your preferred amount of indentation before the “@” symbol. Click on Apply to proceed.

Step 4
All selected cells should now be indented.

Step 5
We can also use a custom ARRAYFORMULA to append whitespace and the cell contents to create indentations.

This method will create a new copy of the original data you want to indent.
Summary
This guide should be everything you need to learn how to indent text in Google Sheets.
You may make a copy of this example spreadsheet to test it out on your own.
More ways to use text in Google Sheets:
- Add Bullet Points
- Insert Text Box
- Insert Special Characters
- Insert Symbols
- Insert Page Break
- Center Text
- How To Make Text Fit In Cell
- Make Text Vertical
- Change Case
- View Page Breaks
- Line Break In Google Sheets
- How To Capitalize
- How To Wrap Text
- How To Indent
- Count Cells with Text
- Fit Text to Cell
- Checking if a Cell Contains a Substring
- TEXT Function
- Combine Text From Two Cells
- SUMIF Cells If Contains Text
- Add Text To Formula
- Change Text To All Caps
- Spell Check in Google Sheets
- How to Use Spell Check
- Insert a Bullet List
- Make a Numbered List
- Insert Bullet Points
- Add a New Line In Cell
- Add Multiple Lines In One Cell
- Wrap Text In Cell
- Superscript In Google Sheets
- Make A Degree Symbol
- SUBSTITUTE Function
- How To Alphabetize