SpeedFormatting doesn't always accomplish everything you want, so you might choose to manually format your spreadsheet. One of the simplest techniques you can use to improve the appearance of your spreadsheet is to align information. In Figure 8.4, Quattro Pro has assigned the default left alignment to text and the default right alignment to numbers. The appearance of the spreadsheet would be improved if the column headings (January, February, March, and Total) were either centered above the numbers or right-aligned. Because I prefer right-alignment, I'll show you how to right-align the text in cells B4.E4; if you prefer centering, you can use the technique I describe to center the information. Figure 8.4. If the column headings containing the month names were right-aligned over the data, the spreadsheet would look better.
To change the alignment of a cell or group of cells, select the cells you want to align (in this example, I selected B4.E4). Then, open the Format menu and click Selection Properties. In the Active Cells dialog box that appears (see Figure 8.5), click the Alignment tab. Figure 8.5. Use this dialog box to set alignment for selected cells.
In the Horizontal Alignment section, click the Right option. Notice that you can preview the appearance of the proposed change in the lower-right corner of the dialog box. Click OK, and Quattro Pro applies the alignment formatting (see Figure 8.6). Figure 8.6. The spreadsheet looks better after aligning the column titles to match the numeric alignment of the data in the columns. |