Formatting

Got a spreadsheet problem that you just can’t figure out?

Wondering whether you’re going all round the houses to do something that could be solved with a few clicks?

Don’t fear… Traci’s Tips are right here!

Here are a few Formatting tips that you may find useful.

Tip 1

Double click format painter

This will enable you to copy Formats to more than one cell

Tip 2

View, Gridlines (Tick / Untick box)

Switch off gridlines to make your spreadsheet look like a big piece of paper instead

Tip 3

Alt + Enter

This inserts new lines, within a cell.
It can be used to make lot of info, simpler to read, and look less cluttered.
I use it a lot within large formulas, as it can make them easier to read too.

Tip 4

View, Freeze Panes

This will freeze rows or columns, so that when you scroll down (or to the right), you will still be able to see the header rows, or first columns.

Tip 5

View ALL Sheets

On the bottom left of the screen are 2 arrows (left and right) that can be used to scroll through the sheets.
Right click on those arrows to see list of ALL sheets, and select from the list to activate them.

Tip 6

Change Tab Colour

Right click on tab name, select tab colour.
This makes it more visual, and also easier to instruct Users as you can direct them by colour.

Tip 7

Double click on the line in between two Column letters to re-size the column to fit the widest text in the column

Tip 8

Double click on the line in between two Row numbers to re-size the Row width to fit the widest text in the row

Tip 9

Use ‘Fit to One Page’ on ‘Page Setup’ menu to make data print out on one page.

Tip 10

Use ‘Wrap Text’ in the ‘Format’ menu to make a column heading visible, without making the column too wide

Tip 11

Add frequently used icons to the ribbon at the top of the screen, to save searching for the correct menu

Tip 12

Change the setting in Excel (Excel Options), to control where the cursor is positioned after pressing enter

Tip 13

Use an apostrophe (‘) before typing a phone number, so that the first ‘0’ still appears

Tip 14

Always put ‘Total’s’ at the top of a spreadsheet (row 1 or 2 perhaps) instead of at the bottom of your data, for consistency

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any spreadsheet related questions, and don’t forget you can access loads of my other free templates

Traci x