Excel Formatting

Making Attractive Worksheets

AutoFormat is a feature of Excel that helps you create presentation quality worksheets without having to spend a lot of time formatting.

To activate AutoFormat choose Format>>AutoFormat.

From there you can browse the sample formats and choose one that best suits your document.

If you find that you do not like the formatting style you can undo your operation by choosing AutoFormat and select None. This remove all formatting from the selected cells.

To help control some of the other features of AutoFormat click on the Options>> button and turn off some of the options.

To change the height of a row you have the same options as for a column.

You can double click on the bottom of the row header to automatically set it, or choose Format>>Row.

You may find it necessary to hide rows or columns if you are printing a worksheet and you want only certain parts of it to show up.

To hide either rows or columns choose the appropriate one from the Format menu and select hide.

You may find it necessary to hide the gridlines that normally make up a worksheet.

To turn the gridlines off go to Tools>>Options and in the Options dialog box, click on the View tab, turn off the Gridlines option and click O.K.

In your quest for a nice looking document you will find the need to center a title across a range of cells.

In the old days you need to manually try and center the title by selecting a cell for your title and then moving it until it looked O.K.

Now all we need to do is to select our cells and click on the Merge and Center button on the Formatting toolbar :-)

Excel offers an easy way to change the width of your columns.

To set the width of a column to its widest entry, just place your cursor on the right edge of the column heading and double click on it.

You can also set the column width manually in the Format>>Column dialog box.

You may find it necessary to change the alignment of one or more areas of your worksheet to give it a better appearance.

To alter the alignment of a cell go to Format>>Cells and then click on the Alignment tab.

One of the most interesting features under alignment is the ability to change the orientation of your text.

With lengthy text entries it is often more attractive to force Excel to wrap the text so that it creates an attractive paragraph in the cell.

To force a wrap, set the column width and then select the cells you wish to wrap.

Choose Format>>Cells and in the dialog box turn on the Wrap text check box.

Excel has several border types to choose from to help you format your document just as you wish.

The easiest way to apply a border style is to select the border type from the formatting toolbar borders button.

You can also do the same from Format>>Cells and the border tab.

Colors and patterns can make your document easier to read and more attractive.

Highlight the cells where you wish to apply your formatting.

To apply one or the other, choose Format>>Cells from the format menu and go to the Patterns tab.