Get Cell Content Size

Updated on May 11, 2026

With the text measuring functionality of SpreadStreamProcessing you can obtain the size of specific content and use it to apply height and width to the rows and columns, respectively.

Why is it needed?

SpreadStreamProcessing is designed to directly write the content inside the stream while you generate the document. While this brings great benefits in terms of performance and memory usage, it also comes with a limitation for the automatic sizing of the content. To automatically fit the cell content into a column means that the library should measure each cell content inside that column and change its width if that needed. However, at the time the cell content is written into the stream, the column is already defined and it cannot be further modified. To overcome that limitation, SpreadStreamProcessing exposes the CellContentSizeHelper class.

Using CellContentSizeHelper

CellContentSizeHelper is a static class and exposes two overloads of the GetCellContentSize method. These overloads allow you to pass the formatting applied to the cell as a SpreadCellFormat or as separate values.

To use this class, you must add a reference to Telerik.Windows.Documents.Spreadsheet for .NET Framework projects or Telerik.Documents.Spreadsheet for .NET Standard projects.

To achieve accurate results in .NET Standard, it is suggested to use SpreadFixedTextMeasurer.

Measuring Cell Content with SpreadCellFormat

One of overloads of GetCellContentSize enables you to obtain the size needed for a specific cell value with applied a SpreadCellFormat to it. The following table describes the parameters of that method:

Parameter	Type	Description
value	string	The cell value. If formula is passed, the method will throw an ArgumentException.
spreadCellFormat	SpreadCellFormat	The formatting of the cell.
cellWidth	double	Optional. The width of the cell in pixels. This value is only respected if the value of the WrapText property of the spreadCellFormat is true. The default column width is 65 pixels.

Measuring Cell Content with Separate Formatting Values

GetCellContentSize exposes an overload that allows you pass separate values for the formatting properties of a cell that can affect the size of that cell's content. The following table describes the parameters that overload accepts:

Parameter	Type	Description
value	string	The cell value. If formula is passed the method will throw an ArgumentException.
cellValueFormat	string	The number format of the cell.
fontFamily	string	The font family name.
fontSize	double	The size of the font.
isBold	bool	A value indicating whether the text is bold.
isItalic	bool	A value indicating whether the text is italic.
horizontalAlignment	SpreadHorizontalAlignment	The horizontal alignment.
isWrapped	bool	A value indicating whether the text is wrapped.
indent	int	The cell indentation.
cellWidth	double	Optional. The width of the cell in pixels. This value is only respected if the value of the WrapText property of the spreadCellFormat is true. The default column width is 65 pixels.

Example

The following example shows how you can create a spreadsheet document, measure the content of the cells and apply width to the columns in a way that these columns auto fit their content.

Example 1: Create spreadsheet with auto fit columns width

C#

public static void ExportSpreadsheet(SpreadDocumentFormat documentFormat, string fileName)
{
    SpreadBorder border = new SpreadBorder(SpreadBorderStyle.Thin, new SpreadThemableColor(new SpreadColor(125, 125, 0)));
    SpreadCellFormat format = new SpreadCellFormat()
    {
        NumberFormat = "@",
        IsBold = true,
        IsItalic = true,
        LeftBorder = border,
        RightBorder = border,
        TopBorder = border,
        BottomBorder = border,
        WrapText = false
    };

    string[] vegetablesToExport = new string[] { "carrot", "broccoli", "cucumber", "eggplant", "lettuce", "cabbage", "tomato" };

    double vegetablesColumnWidth;
    CalculateColumnWidth(format, vegetablesToExport, out vegetablesColumnWidth);

    using (FileStream stream = File.Open(fileName, FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
    {
        using (IWorkbookExporter workbook = SpreadExporter.CreateWorkbookExporter(documentFormat, stream))
        {
            using (IWorksheetExporter worksheet = workbook.CreateWorksheetExporter("Vegetables List"))
            {
                using (IColumnExporter column = worksheet.CreateColumnExporter())
                {
                    column.SetWidthInPixels(vegetablesColumnWidth);
                }

                for (int rowIndex = 1; rowIndex < vegetablesToExport.Length + 1; rowIndex++)
                {
                    using (IRowExporter row = worksheet.CreateRowExporter())
                    {
                        string vegetable = vegetablesToExport[rowIndex - 1];

                        using (ICellExporter cell = row.CreateCellExporter())
                        {
                            cell.SetValue(vegetable);
                            cell.SetFormat(format);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

private static void CalculateColumnWidth(SpreadCellFormat format, string[] values, out double columnWidth)
{
    columnWidth = 0;

    foreach (var value in values)
    {
        double contentWidth = CellContentSizeHelper.GetCellContentSize(value, format).Width;
        if (contentWidth > columnWidth)
        {
            columnWidth = contentWidth;
        }
    }
}

See Also

• Cells
• Workbook