AutoFit Height ONLY not width

I'm not overlooking the AutoFitRowHeight functionality.
As I've stated, this is not a page that the user will see until they have printed the document. Any text in these 4 rows comes from a different worksheet, and can vary in length depending how other sections of the document have been filled in. This means that the user will never get the option to select AutoFitRowHeight as they will not have access to this sheet within excel.

I've tried on blank worksheets having sheet1 A1 set as "=Sheet2!A1" then setting a column width and clicking AutoFitRowHeight. If I then enter something longer than the cell width of sheet1 A1 into sheet2 A1 the height of sheet1 A1 does not change. It will only change if I select AutoFit after the text has been entered into sheet2 A1.
I've also tested clicking AutoFit where cells A1:J1 are merged and still have "=Sheet2!A1" as the value, but also have M1 as =Sheet1!A1. If I then click AutoFit on M1 the height will change and this will also affect A1:J1 - this is the effect i'm looking for but without having to manually click AutoFit.

You have no idea how hard I've tried to get this document remade (for the last 4 years at least) and I was only given the go-ahead 6 months ago, however I've never been included in any discussions about any changes (even though I'm prectically the only person in the office with knowledge of the entire document) but I keep receiving notifications with comments like "as agreed in the meeting". Management think that any changes will take a week maybe a month, however I've been working my way though this for the past 6 months and there's at least another 6 months worth of work to do.

Basically there's two parts to the document; 1. What the user sees, 2. What the client sees. (the above is from #2). The file that's actually sent back and forth between the users and the office is an XML file which assigns all the values in the excel file. Part 2 of the document automatically completes based on the information in Part 1 and is converted into a PDF document for the client. I've spoken with the person who created the original document 15 years ago, and they say there's no reason that excel needs to be used - we only use excel as the software to enter the values for the XML file. They say we can just develop something in C# that would do the same task and be much quicker for the user. The problem is, I don't work in the IT department and have a very limited knowledge of C#. All of the development resources are currently working on other 'more important' projects, which is why I've been given this task and told it needs to stay in excel (to save on development).