A well-formatted spreadsheet is easy to read. Spreadsheet programs have plenty of formatting features.
Adjusting column width and row height
To adjust a column’s width or a row’s height, move your mouse cursor between two columns or rows. Click and drag to resize.
To automatically resize a row to fit the data entered in a cell, double-click between the current row and the row after it.
Cell formatting
To access a cell’s formatting options, right-click on the cell and click ‘Formatting options’. A dialogue box with the following tabs will appear:
- number – tell the spreadsheet what type of data the cell contains, eg currency, percentage, date, time, etc
- alignment – align the text in the cell vertically (top, bottom or middle), horizontally (left or right) or at an angle
- font – change the font used, text size and colour
- border – add a solid, dotted, dashed or coloured border to the cell
- fill – choose what colour or pattern the cell is filled with
The name of these tabs may differ slightly between spreadsheet programs.
Wrap text
If the text in a cell exceeds the space available, wrap text will resize the cell so it fits.
Merge cells
It is also possible to join two or more cells together to make one single cell.
Adding formatting
Paul’s spreadsheet is messy and needs some formatting applied to make it more presentable and easier to read.
- He centres ‘Day’, ‘Description’, ‘Incoming’ and ‘Outgoing’, bolds them and fills the cells with light grey to make them stand out.
- He also resizes the cells so the labels fit and increases the height of his rows to space them out.
- He changes the type of data in the cells beneath ‘Incoming’ and ‘Outgoing’ to ‘Currency’.
- He applies borders to all of the cells.
- He changes the vertical alignment of the cells in columns C and D to ‘Center’.
- It looks much better now but it needs a formula to work out how much money he’s left with at the end of the week.
Formulas and functions
Formulas and functions are extremely useful features. They make automatic calculations that update when the data does.
Formulas
Formulas are usually simple calculations, eg adding two or more numbers together. They always start with an equals sign (=).
Symbols used in formulas
There are a number of symbols used in formulas or calculations. These are the most common ones:
- ‘+’ add
- ‘-’ subtract
- ‘*’ multiply
- ‘/’ divide
Functions
Functions make more complex calculations. Simple and regularly used functions include:
- SUM – adds values in selected cells
- MIN – finds smallest value
- MAX – finds largest value
- AVERAGE – finds the average value
- COUNT – counts how many of the selected cells have numbers in them
Like formulas, all functions start with an equals sign (=) followed by the function’s name, eg SUM, MIN, MAX, etc.