Excel: Appearance

October 15, 2012

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Microsoft Excel 2010

Lesson 3: Appearance

If you are not working on the worksheet, Example.xlsx, from a previous lesson, open it from

your H: drive. At this point we have developed the worksheet with all the information we need.

We now need to work on its format so that it will look better.

The Accounting Style

Select the block of cells between B7

and F17, which represent dollars.

We want to format these cells so

that they look like dollars:

$2,032 rather than 2032.

Click on the Accounting Style icon

in the Home ribbon.

You now will see the numbers

formatted as US dollars.

You may see ####### in one or more of the columns. This is an indication that the number in the

column cannot be displayed because the number is too large. If this happens, don’t worry about

this. We will see how to fix it in a minute.

Excel: Appearance

October 15, 2012

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The numbers displayed as currency all

have .00 as decimal places because the

values have been entered as dollars

only. These decimal places are

unnecessary, so it would be nice not to

display them.

Select the numbers again and click

twice on the Decrease Decimal Place

icon in the Home ribbon to remove the

decimal places.

The Percent Style

Select the numbers in cells B18 through

E18.

Click on the Percent icon in the Home

ribbon to format them as percent.

At this point, the worksheet should look

like the picture at the right.

Excel: Appearance

October 15, 2012

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Select cells B18 through E18 and click on

the Increase Decimal Place icon once to

display the percents with one decimal

place.

Changing Font Size

The numbers in this worksheet are somewhat small. You may

want to increase the size of the font.

Select everything you have entered and choose a font size of

14 on the Home ribbon.

We see that columns A and F are no longer wide enough for

words in Arial 14 to be seen – some of the text is buried

under adjacent columns.

Also, if you see ##### in some of the cells, this indicates that

these cells are not wide enough for the numbers in them.

Excel: Appearance

October 15, 2012

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Changing Column Width

One way to change the width of a column is to “grab” its border with the mouse

and “pull” it, as we have done before. Move the mouse so that the cursor is

located between the cells labeled “A” and “B.”

Pull the border to the right until all the words are visible.

It is difficult to give different columns an identical width by pulling their

borders. Because they all contain currency, we would like columns B through F

to have a consistent width. We can do this by selecting the columns and then

specifying the width we want.

Click on the cell labeled “B” to select column B –

when the column is selected, the entire column will

be shaded. Then, while holding down the shift key on

the keyboard, click on the cells labeled C, D, E, and

F. This should select these columns as well.

Point the cursor somewhere inside the selected area

and right-click with the mouse. In the menu that pops

up, click on Column Width.

In the Column Width window, try a Column Width of 15.

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October 15, 2012

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This looks better.

Add the word “Percent” in cell

A18.

Adding Borders

You can add borders to a table

to make it easier to read.

Select the block of cells from

A6 through F18 as illustrated in

this picture.

Click on the small triangle next

to the Border button in the

Home ribbon.

In the drop-down window, click

All Borders. This will surround

all the cells in the selected area

with a thin border.

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October 15, 2012

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Select the block of cells from

A5 through F18 and surround

this block with a Thick Box

border.

Adding Colors to Cells

You also can emphasize portions of a table by shading in the cells with different colors.

Select the block of cells from A5

through F6 and click on the small

triangle beside the Paintbucket

button in the Home ribbon.

Choose a color in the drop-down

window that appears. I decided to

use yellow.

Do the same with the block

of cells A17 through F18.

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October 15, 2012

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Finally, select the block of

cells between A5 and F6 and

put it in Bold font.

Aligning Text and Numbers within a Cell

By default, Excel aligns numbers to the right of a cell and text to the left, as shown below.

You may have occasion to change the default alignment. In our example, it would look better for

the numbers of the four cash registers to be in the center of their respective cells.

Select the four cells B6 through E6 and

click on the Center Alignment icon in

the Home ribbon.

This centers the numbers of the four cash

registers.

Save the worksheet.

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October 15, 2012

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Inserting Rows or Columns

Suppose we would like to display separate

subtotals for the two weeks with a grand

total for both weeks at the bottom.

We need to insert blank rows after the two “Friday” rows.

Click on the number 12 that labels row 12. This should select the

entire row. You can tell that a row has been selected if the entire row is

highlighted.

When the row has been selected, right-click on the row and select

Insert from the menu that appears.

Do the same for row 18.

Shade the new cells within the table gray.

At this point, your worksheet should look

like the image on the right,

Excel: Appearance

October 15, 2012

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Modify your worksheet so that it looks

like the example on the right.

The “Week 1 Total” and “Week 2

Total” rows contain subtotals for these

two separate weeks.

You will need to do the following:

Cells A12 and A18 contain the text “Week 1 Total” and “Week 2 Total,” respectively.

Cell B12 contains the sum of cells B7 through B11

Copy and paste cell B12 into cells C12 through F12

Cell B18 contains the sum of cells B13 through B17

Copy and paste cell B18 into cells C18 through F18

Arithmetic Operations

We will need to change the contents of cells B19 through F19. Now that we have added the

subtotals, we no longer can use the SUM function in cells B19 through F19, because the sums

will include the subtotals as well as the values for all the days.

We need to add up the two subtotals to

get the grand total for both weeks.

In cell B19 enter =B12 + B18

Copy cell B19 and paste it into cells

C19 through F19.

Finally, shade the two subtotal rows

gray and save the spreadsheet.

Excel: Appearance

October 15, 2012

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Merging Cells

It is possible to merge cells to make

one larger cell. Let’s merge the cells

around the table heading “Register”.

Select cells B5 through E5. Then

click on Merge and center in the

Alignment section under the Home

tab.

This will merge the four cells in one

large cell and center the word

“Register” within the large cell.

Deleting Rows or Columns

You can remove entire rows or columns from a worksheet if

you so desire. Select rows 2 and 3. Then right-click

somewhere within the selected rows. In the menu that

appears, click on Delete.

This will delete the selected rows. Save the spreadsheet.

Excel: Appearance

October 15, 2012

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Undoing an Operation

One of the beauties of working on a computer is that you

usually can undo mistakes. Let’s suppose that you are sorry

you deleted these two rows and decide to include them.

Click on the Undo Arrow in the upper left corner of the Excel

window.