Page 143 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 2: Formatting Worksheets
In This Chapter
✓ Selecting cell ranges and adjusting column widths and row heights ✓ Formatting cell ranges as tables
✓ Assigning number formats
✓ Making alignment, font, border, and pattern changes
✓ Using the Format Painter to quickly copy formatting ✓ Formatting cell ranges with Cell Styles
✓ Applying conditional formatting
Formatting — the subject of this chapter — is the process by which you determine the final appearance of the worksheet and the data that it contains. Excel’s formatting features give you a great deal of control over the way the data appears in your worksheet.
For all types of cell entries, you can assign a new font, font size, font style (such as bold, italics, underlining, or strikethrough), or color. You can also change the alignment of entries in the cells in a variety of ways, including the horizontal alignment, the vertical alignment, or the orientation; you can also wrap text entries in the cell or center them across the selection. For numerical values, dates, and times, you can assign one of the many built-in number formats or apply a custom format that you design. For the cells that hold your entries, you can apply different kinds of borders, patterns, and colors. And to the worksheet grid itself, you can assign the most suitable column widths and row heights so that the data in the formatted worksheet is displayed at its best.
With the addition in Excel 2013 of the new Quick Analysis tool with its FORMATTING and TABLES options and the readily available mini-bar with its commonly used formatting buttons, formatting selected data tables in an Excel worksheet has never been easier or quicker. If those features are not enough, you still have access to the Table Styles and Cell Styles galleries and all the command buttons in the Font, Alignment, and Number groups on the Home tab of the Ribbon to get your spreadsheet data looking just right.