Formatting Cells in Excel - Jerry Travis.com



Formatting Cells in Excel (Version 2)

What do I mean when I say formatting cells in Excel? To format a cell means to change how what’s in the cell looks. Formatting a cell does not change what’s in the cell, only how it looks. This is a very important thing to remember.

The Big Three

You already know (I hope) how to use the Big Three of formatting: bold, italics, and underline. In case you forgot, you can manipulate those using these three buttons:

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Color Me Crazy!

You can change the colors of your text and background in Excel very easily. To change the text color, you can highlight the cell you want to change the color of and click on the [pic] button. Clicking on the [pic] will give you a list of colors to choose from. The bar under the “A” will always show the currently selected color. To change the background color of a cell, click on the [pic] button. Again, clicking on the [pic] will give you a list of colors.

A Different Kind of Formatting

In Excel, we work with all kinds of data. Data are simply pieces of information. Some different kinds of data are regular numbers (i.e. 1, 2 13, 233, and so on), dates, currency (i.e. how much was your electric bill), ZIP codes, a list of names, and so on. Excel can format your data in dozens of ways. For example, if you type March 1, 2005 into Excel and press enter, Excel changes it to 1-Mar-05. This is just one way Excel can format a date.

>> Important Information: To format a cell to hold a certain type of data, right-click on the cell and select Format Cells… tthen click on the Number tab. > Important Information: You must enter your percentages in decimal form even if you format a cell as a percentage. For example, if you have formatted your cell as a Percentage and want your cell to show 50%, you must enter .5 in the cell. If you try to enter 50, Excel will show 5000% > Important Information: The best setting for the Fraction category is Up to Three Digits. This will give you the most accurate fractional representation of your decimal numbers. ................
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