Changing the Appearance of Your Worksheet Cell Alignment Excel will automatically align numbers on the right and text on the left. If you wish to change this, first select the cell or range of cells that you want to modify. The Alignment Ribbon will help you do this. You have an Align Left button, a Center button and Align Right button. The Merge and Center button allows you to center a heading across several columns. This can be used after you select the heading and the columns which you want to center it over. To increase your alignment options, you can also click on the Format menu and the Alignment tab by using the arrow in the lower right hand corner as shown on the following page. Text orientation can be changed by increasing or decreasing the number of degrees or by clicking on the desired point on the semicircle. To return to the horizontal position, click on the word Text. There are different options for horizontal and vertical placement within the cell including Justify, which aligns the text on both the right and left sides of the cell. You can also change the orientation of the text from completely horizontal to totally vertical. The Wrap text option will break a wide text entry into separate lines within the cell. This increases the row height and keeps the text from spilling over into adjacent cells. In addition, you can shrink the text so that it fits within a cell or merge cells. The General option under the Horizontal: text box will return Excel to the default of right-align numbers and left-align text. The Fill option under the Horizontal: text box will repeat the cell contents until the cell is full. For example, if you type an asterisk (*) and choose the Fill option, the entire cell will fill with asterisks.
Fonts, Font Styles, Font Sizes The fonts, font styles and font sizes that you apply to a cell or range of cells will affect the contents whether they are numbers, text, or special characters. They will also remain in effect, even if you change the cell contents. You can apply these features quickly from the Ribbon. The Bold, Italic and Underline buttons are toggle keys because they can be used to both turn on and turn off the styles. Font Options Font Sizes Font Styles There is also a Font Color button on the Ribbon that can be used to change the color of your characters. The possible colors are displayed in the pull-down menu to the left. You can also change font features by clicking on the Format Cells and the Font option or rightclick on the selected cell(s) to bring up a Shortcut menu like the one shown below.
Within the Format Cells dialog box, there is a Font tab. There are different styles for underlining, subscript, superscript and strikethrough options. You will see this in the preview box. When the Normal Font box is checked, all selected options are cancelled and Excel returns to the default. Borders and Shading Borders and shading can be used to emphasize important information such as column headings or totals. Select the desired cells Click on the Format menu and the Cells option or right-click on the selected cells to bring up the Shortcut menu and the Format Cells option Click on the Border tab in the Format Cells dialog box The Presets can be used to select no border, a border around the outside of the cells, borders between adjacent cells, or borders around the outside AND the inside of adjacent cells. The eight Border buttons allow you to choose top, bottom, left, right, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal borders. All of these buttons are toggle buttons, just like the font style buttons. They can be used to turn options on or off.
In addition, you can change the Color, as well as the Style of the borders. The Fill tab (shown above) features different Colors and Patterns for shading a cell or range of cells. The sample box gives you an idea of what the color/pattern choice looks like. There is also a Borders button and a Fill Color button on the Home button under Font that can be used to accomplish the same tasks. They are shown below. Borders button Fill Color button If you want to cancel a border, choose either None from the Border tab of the Format Cells dialog box or the first option on the Borders palette above. To cancel shading, choose either No Color from the Patterns tab of the Format Cells dialog box or No Fill from the Fill Color icon above. Number Formats Number formats also remain with the cell, even if the contents are changes. Once you have selected the cell or range of cells that you want to format, click on the Format menu and the Cells option, or right-click on one of the selected cells to bring up the Shortcut menu.
You will be using the Number tab in the Format Cells dialog box. There are several options available. If you are not sure what a category means, a description can be found at the bottom of the box. Depending upon which category you select, you may have other options available. example, under Special, there are four different types to choose from in the Type: box. Other options that are available in different categories are number of decimal places, currency symbols, and how you wish to display your negative numbers, i.e. in red, within parentheses, etc. The General Category removes any number formatting. The Sample box on the Number tab allows you to preview what the number will look like in the spreadsheet. There are also buttons that can be used to quickly for formatting on the Home button. For Formats with a dollar sign, commas, and two decimal places Removes one decimal place Adds one decimal place Converts the number to a percentage Formats with commas and two decimal places When you type in numbers with symbols such as commas, a dollar sign, or percentage sign, Excel automatically assigns that number format to the cell.