Formatting Cells


Office Excel 2007 spreadsheets can hold and process lots of data, but when you manage numerous spreadsheets it can be hard to remember from a worksheet's title exactly what data is kept in that worksheet. Data labels give you and your colleagues information about data in a worksheet, but it's important to format the labels so that they stand out visually. To make your data labels or any other data stand out, you can change the format of the cells in which the data is stored.

Most of the tools you need to change a cell's format can be found on the user interface's Home tab. You can apply the formatting represented on a button by selecting the cells you want to apply the style to and then clicking the appropriate button. If you want to set your data labels apart by making them appear bold, click the Bold button. If you have already made a cell's contents bold, selecting the cell and clicking the Bold button will remove the formatting.

Tip

Deleting a cell's contents doesn't delete the cell's formatting. To delete a cell's formatting, select the cell and then, on the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Clear button and then click Clear Formats.


Items in the Home tab's Font group that give you choices, such as the Font Color control, have a down arrow at the right edge of the control. Clicking the down arrow displays a list of options accessible for that control, such as the fonts available on your system or the colors you can assign to a cell.

Another way you can make a cell stand apart from its neighbors is to add a border around the cell. To place a border around one or more cells, select the cells and then choose the border type you want by clicking the down arrow in the Font group's Border control and selecting the type of border to apply. Excel 2007 does provide more optionsto display the full range of border types and styles, open the Border control's drop-down list and then click More Borders. The Border tab of the Format Cells dialog box contains the full range of tools you can use to define your cells' borders.

Another way you can make a group of cells stand apart from its neighbors is to change its shading, or the color that fills the cells. On a worksheet that tracks total package volume for the past month, Jenny Lysaker could change the fill color of the cells holding her data labels to make the labels stand out even more than by changing the formatting of the text used to display the labels.

Tip

You can display the most commonly used formatting controls by right-clicking a selected range. When you do, a minitoolbar containing a subset of the Home tab formatting tools appears at the top of the shortcut menu.


If you want to change the attributes of every cell in a row or column, you can click the header of the row or column you want to format and then select your desired format.

One task you can't perform using the tools on the Home tab of the user interface is to change the standard font for a workbook, which is used in the Name box and on the formula bar. The standard font when you install Excel 2007 is Calibri, a simple font that is easy to read on a computer screen and on the printed page. If you want to choose another font, click the Microsoft Office Button and then click Excel Options. On the Popular page of the Excel Options dialog box, set the values in the Use this font and Font size list boxes to pick your new display font.

Important

The new standard font doesn't take effect until you quit Excel 2007 and restart the program.


In this exercise, you emphasize a worksheet's title by changing the format of cell data, adding a border to a cell range, and then changing a cell range's fill color. After those tasks are complete, you change the default font for the workbook.

USE the VehicleMileSummary workbook in the practice file folder for this topic. This practice file is located in the My Documents\Microsoft Press\Excel SBS\Appearance folder.

BE SURE TO start Excel 2007 before beginning this exercise.

OPEN the VehicleMileSummary workbook.


1.

Click cell D2.

2.

On the Home tab of the user interface, in the Font group, click the Bold button.

Excel 2007 displays the cell's contents in bold type.

3.

In the Font group, click the Font Size control down arrow and then click 18.

Excel 2007 increases the size of the text in cell D2.

4.

Select cells B5 and C4.

5.

On the Home tab, in the Font group, click the Bold button.

Excel 2007 displays the cells' contents in bold type.

6.

Select the cell ranges B6:B15 and C5:H5.

7.

On the Home tab, in the Font group, click the Italic button.

Excel 2007 displays the cells' contents in italic type.

8.

Select the cell range C6:H15.

9.

On the Home tab, in the Font group, click the Border control down arrow and then click Outside Borders.

Excel 2007 places a border around the outside edge of the selected cells.

10.

Select the cell range B4:H15.

11.

On the Home tab, in the Font group, click the Border control down arrow and then click Thick Box Border.

Excel 2007 places a thick border around the outside edge of the selected cells.

12.

Select the cell ranges B4:B15 and C4:H5.

13.

On the Home tab, in the Font group, click the Fill Color control down arrow and then, in the Standard Colors section of the color palette, click the yellow button.

Excel 2007 changes the selected cells' background color to yellow.

14.

Click the Microsoft Office Button and then click Excel Options.

The Excel Options dialog box appears.

15.

If necessary, click Popular to display the Popular tab.

16.

In the When creating new workbooks section, click the Use this font field down arrow and then click Verdana.

Verdana appears in the Use this font field.

17.

Click Cancel.

The Excel Options dialog box disappears without saving your change.

CLOSE the VehicleMileSummary workbook.





MicrosoftR Office ExcelR 2007 Step by Step
MicrosoftВ® Office ExcelВ® 2007 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
ISBN: 073562304X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 143
Authors: Curtis Frye

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