Information System Services

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1 Information System Services Diocese of London, 1070 Waterloo Street, London, Ontario, N6A 3Y2 Phone:(519) , Fax:(519) , Excel Formatting Online Demonstration Handout Bold, Italics, Underline These are the most basic of the document formats available. They are accessible by selecting the range to format and clicking on the icon(s) or the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, and Ctrl-U. Cell Alignment Basic Cell Alignments Labels are automatically left aligned and values are right aligned. The following buttons on the toolbar offer the four most common cell alignments used. They will change the alignment of contents within a cell or range of cells. Left Align Right Align Centre Align Centre Across Columns With all of the icons, it is possible to change one cell, or select a range of cells first. To centre across columns, it is necessary to follow two basic rules: The cell containing the entry must be the first cell in the range in which to centre. You must select the range of cells within which to centre. The gridlines on the Excel screen will indicate which cells have the format centre across columns applied to them. The centre align will cause long entries to cell borrow on both sides of the cell.

2 Pg 2 Tip If you wish to change the format on the cell entry, position the cursor on the cell which actually contains the text. The contents will display in the Formula Bar. Advanced Cell Alignments More advanced cell alignment options are available through the cell format dialog box. To access these options: Click on Format Cells or Right mouse click within the appropriate range and choose Format Cells Click on the Alignment tab. Click in here or here or input an amount in here - positive is up, negative is down. Indent Will cause text inside a cell to be indented. Each number represents one character. Text Control Wrap text Shrink to fit Merge cells enables text to wordwrap within a cell Causes text to increase or decrease in size as needed. Font size is ignored and the text size will adjust as the column width is changed. Causes selected cells to become one cell. The cell address used is the cell address for the top left corner cell from the merged group.

3 Pg 3 Clearing Formats Once you have applied formats to cell(s), there will come a time when you will want to remove the formats. Pressing the delete key will only remove the contents of a cell, it does not remove the formats. For example, if you bold a cell, delete the contents and input new text, the new text will also be bolded. To remove formats: Click on Edit Clear. All Formats Contents Comments Will clear formats and contents Will clear cell formats only, leaving the contents Same as the delete key. Will clear the contents only. Will clear comments attached to cells. Column Width When a label is input which is wider than the column, Excel will automatically cell borrow if possible, or visually chop off the remainder of the contents. Values, however, will not cell borrow, but will transpose into scientific notation or be rounded which can be confusing. In such cases, it is advantageous to widen the column. There will also be times when it is beneficial to make a column narrower: for example, if you have only 2 digit numbers in a column. When you change a column, you change the entire column from cell 1 to 65,536; you cannot change only part of a column. Therefore, check to see what else is in the column

4 first!!! In changing column widths, you have the choice of changing one column or a number of columns. Pg 4 Single Column Width To set the width of a single column: Position the mouse pointer over the right edge of the column border - see the diagram. Right here! The mouse pointer will change to a thicker line with a double-headed arrow. Drag the mouse to the width you would like and release, or double-click to set to the widest entry in the column. Multiple Column Widths In order to widen a number of columns together, you must pre-select the columns to change. There are a number of ways to select columns: Point the mouse pointer at the first column border (point at the letter in the grey border) and drag the mouse to the last column to change. Point the mouse pointer at the first column to select and click. Hold the shift key and cursor over the other columns to select. Select the first column, hold the ctrl key and select the remaining columns. This method allows you to select non-contiguous columns. Once the columns are selected, you can drag the border of any one of the selected columns and they will all resize to the same width, or you can double-click on the border of any one of the columns and they will all size to the widest entry individually. Column Width Menu / Reset Width An alternative method to change the column width is through the pull-down menu. The standard column width is In order to reset the column width to the standard, you can drag until you see the 8.43, or set it through the menu. To change column widths through the menu: Format Column Width OR Right mouse click on the column border

5 Pg 5 A dialog box will appear: Input the value you want (8.43 is the standard width). Tip Row Height Changing row heights is very similar to changing column widths. The only difference, is that you drag the bottom border of the row or Format Row Height. The standard row height is Fonts Fonts and font sizes can be changed in two ways. The first method through the Format Cells Font dialog box offers a preview of the font before you finalize your choice. Font and font size buttons are also available in the toolbars. The font list offers font names only, no preview.

6 Pg 6 Numeric Cell Formats Numeric cell formats determine how numbers, dates and time values appear. The default format is GENERAL. If a number is input with only digits (no $, %,etc.), unnecessary 0's are left off, and very large and very small numbers are converted to scientific notation. If a number is input in a format that Excel recognizes, eg. Currency ($1,000) or percent (0.5%), it automatically assigns that formatting to the cell. The format of the current cell is displayed in the status line on the left. Formats used in this course: Number Currency Accounting Date and time Percentage Basic numbers with options to use a comma, and the number of decimal places, and the negative display. Displays a dollar symbol and comma. You can also choose the negative display. Similar to the Currency format except the dollar symbol is at the far left of the cell. Determines how the date and/or time is to be displayed. Displays the number with a percent symbol. You can choose the number of decimal places. Tip Reminder: 10% as a pure number is actually 0.1. Ways to Modify the Numeric Format 1. Input as you type. Input the value with formatting as you type. For example, type $1, This method is only useful if you have a small number of values to input, otherwise it takes longer especially for non-typists. 2. Use the Format Cells dialog box. Select the range you wish to format. Format Cells Number (tab) or CTRL-1 or Right mouse click Format cells A dialog box will appear.

7 Pg 7 What category of number formats do you wish? Choose the number of decimal places. Do you want to have a comma to separate the thousands? How do you want to have negative numbers display? Does your company deal in foreign funds?

8 3. Use the toolbar Select the range you wish to format. Click on the desired format icon. Click on the increase or decrease decimal icons if needed. Pg 8 Tip When applying formats to a worksheet, memory is handled more efficiently if entire columns or rows are formatted. If you only require a few cells, it is still more efficient to format the entire column or row. If more than one format is required within a column, format the column with one type of format and then reformat single cells to the other format. Toolbar Equivalents The toolbar offers quick access to the most commonly used formats. Accounting with 2 decimal places Comma with 2 decimal places Decrease decimal Percent with 2 decimal places Increase decimal Borders Borders are similar to gridlines but offer more flexibility. When gridlines are turned on to print, you cannot specify where. Borders can be placed at specific locations, with different thicknesses and colour. To choose a border: Click on the border icon. If you click on the down arrow, you will have more options to choose from. If you click on the button, the border displayed will be applied to the current range.

9 Pg 9 Border icon Drag the blue bar at the top of the toolbar to make it float in the window. To access more choices as to border styles and colour, Click on Format Cells Or Right mouse click on the range Format Cells Or Shift-F10 on the range Format Cells Preset common options. Choose a line style. Location of line. Line colour

10 Pg 10 Colours and Patterns The Format Cells dialogue also offers a Patterns tab. Text Colour If you have a colour printer or would like to add colour to files which you work with onscreen, text colour is another option. To add text colour, Select the range Click on the text colour icon. Choose the colour you like.