Page 153 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

Adjusting Columns and Rows 135
characters wide (or 64 pixels) and all rows start out 15 points high (or 20 pixels). On a typical touchscreen on a Windows 8 tablet, Excel worksheet columns start out at 8.11 characters wide (or 80 pixels, given their distinc- tive aspect ratio) with rows at 14.11 characters high.
As you build your spreadsheet, you end up with all sorts of data entries that can’t fit within these default settings. This is especially true as you start adding formatting to their cells to enhance and clarify their contents.
Most of the time, you don’t need to be concerned with the heights of the rows in your worksheet because Excel automatically adjusts them up or down to accommodate the largest font size used in a cell in the row and the number of text lines (in some cells, you may wrap their text on several lines). Instead, you’ll spend a lot more time adjusting the column widths to suit the entries for the formatting that you assign to them.
Remember what happens when you put a text entry in a cell whose current width isn’t long enough to accommodate all its characters. If the cells in columns to the right are empty, Excel lets the display of the extra characters spill over into the empty cells. If these cells are already occupied, however, Excel cuts off the display of the extra characters until you widen the column sufficiently. Likewise, remember that if you add formatting to a number so that its value and formatting can’t both be displayed in the cell, those nasty overflow indicators appear in the cell as a string of pound signs (#####) until you widen the column adequately.
You AutoFit the column to its contents
The easiest way to adjust the width of a column to suit its longest entry is to use the AutoFit feature. AutoFit determines the best fit for the column or columns selected at that time, given their longest entries.
✦ To use AutoFit on a single column: Position the mouse or Touch pointer on the right edge of that column in the column header and then, when the pointer changes to a double-headed arrow, double-click the mouse or double-tap your finger or stylus.
✦ To use AutoFit on multiple columns at one time: Select the columns by dragging through them in the column header or by Ctrl+clicking the column letters, and then double-clicking the right edge of one of the selected columns when the pointer changes to a double-headed arrow.
These AutoFit techniques work well for adjusting all columns except for those that contain really long headings (such as the spreadsheet title that often spills over several blank columns in row 1), in which case AutoFit makes the columns far too wide for the bulk of the cell entries.
Book II Chapter 2
Formatting Worksheets