Chapter 9: Worksheet Formatting Techniques

Overview

When creating a worksheet in Microsoft Office Excel 2007, you probably don't ask yourself the question, why use formats? But we'll answer it anyway. Compare Figure 9-1 to Figure 9-2, and we need say no more. Although the data is the same in both worksheets, the worksheet in Figure 9-2 takes advantage of the formatting features available in Office Excel 2007 and as you can see, it's much easier to read and interpret. In this chapter, you'll learn how to apply basic formatting to help turn your data into information, and we'll discuss advanced formatting features such as themes, cell styles, and conditional formatting.

Figure 9-1: All entries in this worksheet are displayed in their default formats.

Figure 9-2: The formatted worksheet is easier to read.