Microsoft Excel Basics

One of the first bits of formatting you will want to do will become obvious soon after you start entering some data.  You will almost certainly want to adjust the width of at least some of the columns you will be working with to better suit the amount of information typical for each type of data.  The easiest way to do this is to mouse over the border separating each column at the very top of your spreadsheet, where the letters display.  The cursor will change from what is essentially a big white "plus" sign into a narrow black line with arrows on either side (see image below).  You can then click and drag the borders right or left, as desired.  Alternatively, if you double click on the border between each column the column will automatically expand/or contract to fit the size of the cell with the most content.

Excel has a large number of additional formatting options, and while there are useful shortcuts on the “Home” tab on the toolbar, the most comprehensive list of options can be found by right-clicking on your selected cell or cells and selecting “Format Cells…” from the drop-down menu (see screen capture, below).

This will give you a dialog box with the following tabs: “Number”, “Alignment”, “Font”, “Border”, “Fill”, and “Protection”. Here’s a quick overview of each:

 

Number.  This provides a list of formats for how numbers will display in the cells selected.  These are probably the most useful to know:

1. Number:  if you are working with non-whole numbers (e.g.  grade averages, percentages), you can select this option and limit the number of decimal places to something consistent.
2. Currency:  if you are working with money, you can select this and pick the currency value and number of decimal places to display.
3. Date:  select this to pick how you want dates displayed.   Any date entered will automatically be revised to conform to that format.
4. Text:  select this if you are entering numbers that you want to display exactly as entered.  Excel will sometimes alter large numbers to scientific notation or remove leading zeros.  If you have a number that is meant to identify something (e.g. an ID number, or an invoice number), this will prevent Excel from displaying the number any way other than how you entered it.

 

 

 

 

Alignment.  This gives you given a number of options for aligning text within each cell selected, and controlling how it fits within each cell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Font. This tab gives you options for altering the appearance and size of text with-in each cell selected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Border. This determines how the borders between the individual cells appear.  You are given options for the style of the border line, its color, and which border is to be altered.  Generally, you want to use this for multiple cells as a way of distinguishing columns or rows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fill.  Determines the background color or pattern of cells selected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protection.  This only matters if you are protecting the sheet.  Locked cells cannot be edited in protected worksheets.