Stretch fonts taller?

Misca

Well-known Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
Messages
1,748
Office Version
  1. 365
Platform
  1. Windows
Is it possible to stretch fonts taller?

I'm working on a SSCC project and I'm facing an interesting problem: I've got some barcode cells in my workbook and the standards state that the barcode must include 20 characters and should be at least 27 mm tall.

However when I grow the font size to as big as possible (= as wide as possible), the height is only 25 mm so it looks like I'd have to stretch the font height by 2 mm or more.

I know you can do that in other programs but is it possible to stretch fonts in Excel?
 

Excel Facts

Why are there 1,048,576 rows in Excel?
The Excel team increased the size of the grid in 2007. There are 2^20 rows and 2^14 columns for a total of 17 billion cells.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe Fonts can be stretched to distort the aspect ratio.

What exactly do you mean that you have "grown the font size as big as possible"? In most cases, you can type in a font size larger than the max size in the drop-down. Even though Excel allows a max font size of 72, you can type in larger sizes than this, like 150.

On the other hand, this also makes the font very wide, also... so perhaps you want to alter the aspect ratio. Here is something to consider, it won;t work with standard fonts, but for barcodes, it is pretty good.

Duplicate the text in two cells, one above the other other (use =a1, or equivalent). Then set the Upper cell to have a vertical alignment of Top, and teh lower cell to have a vertical aligmnet of Bottom. Next, reduce the height of both rows, until the "tex" merges, top to bottom at the cell boundary. You will probably want to play with this, to prevent too much overlap... you also need to turn off your grid-lines. Ultimately, you should be able to double the height of the barcode without making it any wider...
 
Upvote 0
Thanks for the tip. I was actually thinking of doing just that if nothing else works out - except that I was thinking of aligning the top one to the bottom of the cell and the lower one to the top so that they'd seem to be one single cell when you print it to the sticker.

If only there were more room in the stickers I would've used 120 or something to print them big enough but unfortunately if the font size goes over 80 the barcode becomes too wide to fit in the printing area & if you miss the beginning / end signs of the code the rest will be unreadable to the scanners.
 
Upvote 0
except that I was thinking of aligning the top one to the bottom of the cell and the lower one to the top so that they'd seem to be one single cell when you print it to the sticker.

That was my first thought also, it makes logical sense, however, Excel maintains a margin at the TOP when aligned to the top, and the reverse when aligned to the bottom. So when you align as you propose (which I tried), you actually end up with a gap between the text, no matter how you adjust the row height. You need to reverse the alignment, as I described, in order to achieve the effect you are looking for.
 
Upvote 0
Thank you. Works like a charm with the settings you suggested!
 
Upvote 0
Thank you. Works like a charm with the settings you suggested!
Hi!

Is there a better solution found for this problem? I tried overlapping two same barcodes to increase its height as suggested but it is a time taking process if I have to generate the barcodes rapidly and print. The microsoft link that was shared seems to be obsolete. Can anyone reshare the updated link?

Thanks in advance,
Suraj
 
Upvote 0
Hi!

Is there a better solution found for this problem? I tried overlapping two same barcodes to increase its height as suggested but it is a time taking process if I have to generate the barcodes rapidly and print. The microsoft link that was shared seems to be obsolete. Can anyone reshare the updated link?

Thanks in advance,
Suraj

I haven't seen anything since this thread was active that offers a better solution than the one I proposed. If it is "time-consuming" simply build a quick macro that takes the currently selected cell, and combines it with the cell below it as described in the solution above, then tie the macro to a shortcut key. If you are not familiar with recording macros and such, there are plenty of tutorials to help you through those steps.
 
Upvote 0
I found a workaround to my problem: I used the camera tool (= paste linked picture) to turn my barcode text (=range) into a picture. Then I removed the borders of the image and stretched it to cover the desired area of my workbook. Since the image is dynamic it changes as the barcode changes and works like a charm.

Just make sure the range you're taking the picture of is wide enough to fit any text you're going to use and nobody will ever notice the difference.
 
Upvote 0

Forum statistics

Threads
1,213,517
Messages
6,114,089
Members
448,548
Latest member
harryls

We've detected that you are using an adblocker.

We have a great community of people providing Excel help here, but the hosting costs are enormous. You can help keep this site running by allowing ads on MrExcel.com.
Allow Ads at MrExcel

Which adblocker are you using?

Disable AdBlock

Follow these easy steps to disable AdBlock

1)Click on the icon in the browser’s toolbar.
2)Click on the icon in the browser’s toolbar.
2)Click on the "Pause on this site" option.
Go back

Disable AdBlock Plus

Follow these easy steps to disable AdBlock Plus

1)Click on the icon in the browser’s toolbar.
2)Click on the toggle to disable it for "mrexcel.com".
Go back

Disable uBlock Origin

Follow these easy steps to disable uBlock Origin

1)Click on the icon in the browser’s toolbar.
2)Click on the "Power" button.
3)Click on the "Refresh" button.
Go back

Disable uBlock

Follow these easy steps to disable uBlock

1)Click on the icon in the browser’s toolbar.
2)Click on the "Power" button.
3)Click on the "Refresh" button.
Go back
Back
Top