The problem described here is frustratingly common, and it points to a fundamental limitation of traditional spreadsheet tools. When Excel splits a single text line across two PDF pages, it isn't a user error, it is the tool failing to understand that your data has structure. You set a row height of 12.75 points, used Arial 10, and enabled text wrapping. You did everything right. The software should respect the integrity of that row.
What this means in practice is that you are spending time fighting page breaks instead of working with your data. Every manual adjustment of a page break is a moment lost to a task that a smarter system should handle automatically. The core issue is that Excel treats rows as purely numerical containers. It does not recognize that a row containing wrapped text is a single logical unit. When it calculates page breaks, it does so by pixel height, not by the semantic content of your cells. That is why half a line gets left behind on page one while the rest of it drifts to page two. The software is literally cutting your thoughts in half.
There is no setting in Excel that will fix this permanently. Adjusting page breaks manually works only until you add or remove a single row of data, at which point the entire layout shifts and you start over. Some users resort to inserting blank rows as spacers or increasing row heights to force breaks. Those are workarounds, not solutions. They introduce new problems: inconsistent spacing, wasted vertical space, and PDFs that look like they were assembled by hand. A modern tool should let you define a rule, "keep this row together", and enforce it across every export.
You deserve a spreadsheet that respects the way you actually work. If you are repeatedly fighting page breaks to produce a clean PDF, consider whether the tool is serving you or you are serving the tool. An AI-native spreadsheet can read the content of your cells, understand that a wrapped line is a single unit, and automatically adjust page breaks to preserve that structure. It can also learn your formatting preferences and apply them consistently. The solution is not to become a better page-break adjuster. It is to use a tool that does not require you to become one.