Introduction to Excel 20021 Formatting Your Worksheet This lesson will cover: What is Formatting? How to: Format Numbers Align Text and Format Fonts Change

Introduction to Excel 2002 1

Formatting Your WorksheetThis lesson will cover:

• What is Formatting?• How to:

• Format Numbers• Align Text and Format Fonts• Change cell Borders, Colors or Patterns• Copy a Cell’s Format• Change a Row’s Height or Column’s Width• Use AutoFormat• Design and Apply a style• Conditional Formatting

These topics are from Chapter 5 of the text...


What is Formatting?

Formatting in Excel means to define the appearance or functionality of your worksheet by applying attributes to cells and the worksheet, or workbook as a whole such as:

• Number format: Currency, Date, Time, Fraction, etc. • Text Alignment: indents, word wrap, merge cells , etc.• Font style, size, color, effects , etc.• Cell Borders including line type, thickness and color• Patterns or Cell Shading• Cell Protection: locking or hiding cell contents


To format a cell or range of cells, select Cells from the Format menu, or right click and select Format Cells…

You can also use the Ctrl+1 shortcut.


The Format Cells dialog box contains tabbed pages that cover 6 areas of cell formatting. Other options such as row height and column width are available from the pop-up menu or from the Format menu.


Selecting the Format command from the main menu displays sub-menus that allow additional formatting of rows, columns and worksheets. These formatting functions include:

• Row height• Column width• AutoFit height and width• Cell protection and hiding, or… • Applying a predefined set of attributes by using AutoFormat, Conditional Formatting, or a Style.


And, if this weren’t enough…there is always the shortcut menu. Selecting the Format Cells command opens the Format Cells dialog box as shown previously. If the Formatting toolbar is available you can use it to make several formatting selections by clicking a button. These formatting functions include font formats, text alignment, number styles and cell background patterns.

Font formatting

Number formatting

Text Alignment

Fill and Font colors

Border


A Quick Tour of…The Format Cells dialog box

The Format Cells dialog box has the following tabbed “pages”:

• Number • Alignment• Font• Border• Patterns• Protection


The Number tab on the Format Cells dialog box allows you to change the way text is displayed by Excel. This includes currency, date, time and percentage formats among many others. When you select a number format, a description of the format appears along with a sample of the format (if possible).

• Decrease decimal size• Increase decimal size• Decrease decimal size, Comma style• Format for percentages• Currency format

Number

From the toolbar these options are available…


The Alignment page allows you to apply text formatting such as horizontal and vertical alignment, text wrapping, indentation, cell merging and “Shrink to fit” formatting.

Instead of creating wide columns or abbreviated labels, you can rotate text and apply borders that are rotated to the same degree as the text.

• Merge cells• Align Right• Align Center• Align Left

Alignment



Use the Font page to format text and individual characters. Font attributes such as the font name, style, size, color and other font effects can be changed from this page.

You can format all of the text in a cell or only selected characters. To change a font or its attributes, select the characters you want to format, and then open the Format Cells dialog box.

• Underline• Italic• Bold• Font Size• Font (name)

Font



To distinguish between different types of information in a worksheet, you can apply borders to cells. These appear to be the “grids” that many people associate with spreadsheets. Here you can add or remove lines and define their thickness, style, and color.

• Border

Border

From the toolbar this option is available…


The Patterns page defines a cell’s background fill color or pattern. A Patterns dialog box, as shown below, opens when you click the Patterns dropdown box.

Patterns

• Fill Color (Patterns)

From the toolbar this option is available…


Locking cells prevents them from being changed, moved, resized or deleted. Locking cells has no effect unless the worksheet is protected. To Protect the worksheet:• Select Protection from the Tools menu…• Select Protect Sheet…• Select the Contents checkbox.

Protection

Hiding a cell hides the formula in a cell so that it is not visible in the Formula bar when it is selected. This feature also needs to have Sheet Protection enabled to function.


Changing Column WidthsAnd Row Heights…

Many times when you paste data into cells you will see the ##### error value. This value occurs when the cell contains a number, date, or time that is wider than the cell. Although there are other reasons you will see this value, it can generally be remedied by increasing the column’s width Adjusting column widths and row heights is a common task in Excel, and there are many ways to do it.

You can always drag the boundary of the column heading until the column is the width you want…or drag a row heading boundary up or down to change it…


Selecting Column, then Width from the Format menu, or Column Width from the shortcut menu, displays a “Column Width” dialog box…


The displayed column width is the average number of digits 0 through 9 of the

standard font that fit in a cell.

…changing the value will change the selected column’s width.


Selecting Row, then Height from the Format menu, or Row Height from the shortcut menu, displays this dialog box…changing the value will change the selected row’s height.


AutoFit

To automatically adjust a column or row to accept a copied or otherwise new value, use Excel’s AutoFit feature. The AutoFit command can be initiated by double clicking on the dividing line between the column header you want to resize and the adjoining column to the right . Below we want to adjust column “G” to properly show the “Gain/Loss” figures…to do this you would double click within the red circle…notice that the mouse pointer becomes a “double-headed” arrow…


AutoFit

The same AutoFit command as used for columns can be preformed by double clicking on the dividing line between the row header you want to resize and the adjoining row below it . Below we want to adjust row “1” to properly show the data…to do this you would double click within the red circle…


AutoFitAs with many things in Excel you can always Undo the AutoFit command….


To copy the formatting of a selected cell or range of cells, select the cell with the formatting you wish to copy. Then click Format Painter on the Formatting toolbar.

To copy the formatting in the selected cell or range to several locations, double-click the Format Painter button. When you finish copying the formatting, click the button again.

To copy column widths, select the heading of the column that is the width you want to copy, click the Format Painter button, and then click the heading of the column you want to copy the width to.

Copy a Cell’s Format


…first select the cell or cells that contain the format you wish to replicate…then click the Format Painter button on Excel’s Standard toolbar


…then click on the cell, or range of cells to set the format the same as your first selection…notice how your mouse pointer changes to a paint brush…


Autoformat

Excel’s AutoFormat feature applies a predefined set of formats to a selected range of cells. Note that AutoFormat only changes selected cells and not the entire worksheet (or workbook).

When you use AutoFormat the formatting that is applied includes several areas of attributes and may cause cosmetic changes to your worksheet that will necessitate a little housekeeping to make it ready for presentation to the public…


To open the AutoFormat dialog box…Select AutoFormat from the Format menu.

The AutoFormat dialog box has a visual list of the available formats…


Scroll through the list by using the scroll bar. When you see a format you like, select it and click OK…you can always Undo it if you don’t like the results.


The AutoFormat, “Colorful 2” has now been applied to the selected range of cells…remember you can Undo this change, and try others if you like.


Design and Apply a Style

A style is a set of formatting that is saved and can be applied whenever you wish. This is useful if you create and use the same type of workbook and require a standard set of formats. Many corporations have specific standards for workbooks, and user defined styles are a way to provide consistency in such situations.



To create a new style:

• Select a cell that has the combination of formats you want to include in the new style. (You can specify the formats when you name the style.)

• From the Format menu, select Style.

• In the Style name box, type a name for the new style.

• To define and apply the style to the selected cells, click OK. To define the style without applying it, click Add, and then click Close.


…from the Style dialog box you can define the formatting you want to use by using the checkboxes, or the buttons to the right…the Modify button opens the familiar Format Cells dialog box.


…after creating or redefining the Style, name it so you can save it and select it later from the down-down list when you wish to apply it.



If you want to apply a style you created, or any other style that has been saved, use the same Style dialog box.

Simply select a cell or range of cells…

Then select a Style from the Style name box and then click OK to apply that style…


Conditional Formatting

Excel can also apply formatting to cells or ranges of cell depending on a certain condition that you set. This is like using an IF function (or statement ) to apply formatting…

…that is because the formatting is only applied if…a condition is true or false (or exists) or a cell contains a certain value…

…say, for example that you wanted to highlight your stock portfolio losses…


…first you would need to select the cell or range of cells you want to conditionally format…


Then open the Conditional Formatting dialog box by selecting the “Conditional Formatting …” menu command from the Format menu


From this dialog box you can select the conditions necessary to change the format of the selected cell or cells...and set the format to be applied. Here the cells will be formatted if the value is less than 2000…


…next click the Format button to open the Format Cells dialog box…for this demonstration we’ll set the cell background color (or shading) to a bright red and the font to BOLD…if the condition is met.


Now that’s it…the condition has been set and the format selected…


When you close the dialog box by clicking OK to accept your choices, the cells become Red with BOLD text… if their value is less than 2000.

Documents

Introduction to Excel 20021 Formatting Your Worksheet This lesson will cover: What is Formatting? How to: Format Numbers Align Text and Format Fonts Change