Spreadsheets

Unit 2: Creating More Effective Spreadsheets

Lesson 4: Formatting

How do you use formatting commands to change the layout of a spreadsheet?

Formatting commands don't change the content of a spreadsheet, but rather how the content is displayed. To put it another way, the data in the cell don't change, but how the data are displayed to the user does change. For example, consider the two figures at the right. In both figures the data is the same. In Figure 2 the Bold and Right Align formatting commands have been applied to the label, and the currency format has been applied to the number.

Figure 1. No formatting

Figure 2. With Formatting

Figure 3. Format Menu

So, how do you apply formatting commands? Formatting commands are applied to a cell or a group of cells. You will find the formatting commands grouped under the Format menu. To apply a formatting command:

Select the cell or range of cells to be formatted.
Select a format command from the Format menu. (You could alternately use a toolbar command. We will cover this more thoroughly later in this objective.)
Choose the desired formatting option from the command dialog box.

The Format/Cells... command brings up the following dialog box:

Figure 4. Format Dialog Box

Probably the best way to learn how to use the different format options is to start Microsoft Excel and experiment. Here we will discuss just the subtleties that might trip you up.

Number: Notice that Time and Date formats are listed under the Number formats. There is no special time or date data type. Rather, numeric values are used to represent the time or date, and the cell is formatted to be of type Time or Date. For example, the value 3 represents the date 1/3/00. Note that some date formats will not work well at the turn of the century. For example, 12/31/99 + 1 is 1/1/00.
Alignment: Alignment is relative to the cell where the data are defined, not necessarily the page. For example, you may be familiar with aligning to center a paragraph in a word processor. Well, the actual center of a spreadsheet is a long distance from the left margin, a place that rarely sees text. When you apply the center formatting command to a label in a cell it will be centered relative to that cell.
Font: Many of the options under the Font tab are available from the toolbar. See below for more details.
Border: The options under the Border tab can be a bit confusing. This formatting command allows you to put a border around a cell or group of cells. You can control the type of line style for the top, bottom, left, and right of the cell or group of cells. You should select the line style first, then select where on the selected region the line style should be applied.
Patterns: Patterns allow you to specify the pattern and color to be used as the background for a cell or group of cells. Note: If you don't have a color printer, the printed form of your spreadsheet may be hard to read after the shading is translated to grayscale.

Using formatting commands from the toolbar

Perhaps the easiest way to apply some formatting commands is by using the toolbar. The avi movie to the right shows an example of using the toolbar to format cells.

Formatting From the Toolbar
(avi movie)

How do you format a group of cells all at once?

Formatting a Range of Cells
(avi movie)

It was mentioned above that formatting commands are applied to a cell or group of cells. To apply a formatting command to a group of cells, select the range of cells before selecting the command. For more information about selecting a range of cells, see that lesson. For an example of formatting a group of cells from the toolbar, try the avi move to the left.