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Using the Format Cells Dialog Box 149
In addition, the mini-toolbar contains the Format Painter button from the Clipboard group of the Home tab, which you can use to copy the formatting in the active cell to a cell selection you make. (See “Hiring Out the Format Painter” later in this chapter for details.)
To display the mini-toolbar on a touchscreen device, tap and hold any cell in the selected range. Note that the mini-toolbar that appears is a little differ- ent from the one you see when you right-click a cell selection with a physical mouse. This one contains a single row of command buttons that combine editing and formatting functions — Paste, Cut, Copy, Clear, Fill Color, Font Color, and AutoFill followed by a Show Context Menu button (with a black triangle pointing downward). Tap the Show Context Menu button to display a pop-up menu of other editing and formatting options. Tap the Format Cells button on this menu to get access to all sorts of formatting options (see sec- tion that follows for details).
Using the Format Cells Dialog Box
Although the command buttons in the Font, Alignment, and Number groups on the Home tab give you immediate access to the most commonly used formatting commands, they do not represent all of Excel’s formatting com- mands by any stretch of the imagination.
To have access to all the formatting commands, you need to open the Format Cells dialog box either by clicking the Dialog Box launcher in the Number group on the Ribbon’s Home tab, choosing the More Number Formats option at the bottom of the Number Format button’s drop-down menu in the same Number group, or by simply pressing Ctrl+1.
The Format Cells dialog box contains six tabs: Number, Alignment, Font, Border, Fill, and Protection. (In this chapter, I show you how to use them all except the Protection tab; for information on that tab, see Book IV, Chapter 1.)
The keystroke shortcut that opens the Format Cells dialog box — Ctrl+1 — is one worth knowing. Just keep in mind that the keyboard shortcut is pressing the Ctrl key plus the number 1 key, and not the function key F1.
Assigning number formats
When you enter numbers in a cell or a formula that returns a number, Excel automatically applies the General number format to your entry. The General format displays numeric entries more or less as you enter them. However, the General format does make the following changes to your numeric entries:
Book II Chapter 2
Formatting Worksheets