How to Add Bullet Points in Excel & Google Sheets

This tutorial demonstrates how to add bullet points to a cell in Excel and Google Sheets.

 

Insert Bullets With Alt Key

Excel has a few options for inserting bullet points. The first is to use a shortcut.

1. Position your cell pointer where you want the bullet to go.
2. Hold down the Alt key, then press 7 (ALT + 7).

 

3. Press the space bar and then type in the remainder of your text.

 

Insert Bullets Using Symbols

You can also insert a bullet via the Symbols feature.

1. In the Ribbon, select Insert > Symbols > Symbol.

 

2. The Symbol box appears. You can resize the box if you want to see more symbols by dragging the bottom right-hand corner of the box.

 

3. With the Font on (normal text), use the drop-down list on the right to change the subset from Basic Latin to General Punctuation.

 

4. Select the Bullet and click Insert.

 

5. Click to close the Symbol box.
6. Click to the right of the inserted bullet in the selected cell, and type the text required.

 

7. Repeat for each bulleted entry required.

Inserting Bullets With a Function

You can also insert bullet points into Excel by using the CHAR Function.

1. Select the cell you wish to insert your bulleted text into and type in the CHAR Function with the relevant number required (149 for a bullet point).

 

2. Close the bracket and use the ampersand to concatenate the required text.

 

Insert Bullets Into Google Sheets

Insert a Bullet Using the Alt Code

Google Sheets has the same Alt codes as Excel.

1. To insert a bullet point in Google Sheets, select the cell where the bullet needs to be placed.
2. Press F2 to enter Edit mode.
3. Press ALT + 7 to enter a bullet into the cell.
4. Type the rest of the text into the cell.

 

Insert Bullets Using Special Characters

Google Sheets does not have a symbol function. Google Documents, however, does. If you wish to insert symbols such as bullets into Google Sheets, open a Google document and copy and paste from that document into the Google sheet.

1. In the File menu, select New > Document.

 

A new tab opens in the browser showing a new Google document.

2. Go to Insert > Special Characters.

 

You can select a variety of categories in the left drop-down box, such as Symbol, Emoji, Punctuation, etc.

 

3. Select Symbol in the left drop-down box, then select Geometric Shapes in the box to the right.

 

4. Click on the Small Circle symbol to insert the symbol into the Google document.
5. Click the close button to close the Special Characters box.
6. Highlight the symbol with your mouse and then press CTRL + C to copy the symbol.
7. Switch back to the Google sheet and press CTRL + V to paste the symbol.