Formatting a worksheet can change the look and feel of it. You can add color, change fonts, put in things such as headings, apply styles, and much more. Taking the time to format a worksheet can take it from the black and white page of data and gridlines to something that looks professional and attractive.

Change Font Size and Type

Font is defined as the style of your type. Times New Roman, Courier, and Arial are probably three of the most popular fonts, but there are literally hundreds. When you create a worksheet, you can decide what type of font you want to use. You can also decide the size of the font.

In the snapshot below, we've used Arial, size 10 font.

However, we can change that to another font and another size. Let's change it to Courier, size 12.

You can clearly see how just changing the font type and size can alter the look of a worksheet. But let's learn how to do it.

For this, as with most things in Microsoft products, you have a few choices as to how you change the font size and type. We'll cover the quickest method first.

Go to the Formatting toolbar. It looks like this:

If you do not see this in the toolbar area, then go to View>Toolbars>Formatting. There should be a checkmark beside Formatting in order for the toolbar to appear.

Next, select the data in the worksheet for which you want to change the font. We're going to select the whole range of cells in the example above.

On the Formatting toolbar, you'll see the type of font that you're currently using. It appears in a box with a downward arrow beside it on the left hand side of the toolbar. In our example, and on our toolbar, it's Courier.

Click on the downward arrow beside the font type and select a new font. We're going to select Arial. Once you select the font, the selected data will be changed to the new font.

To change the font type, you can also go to Format>Cells, then click the Font tab.

From this dialogue box, you can also change the size. Just select a size from the Size section of the box.

Another way to change the size of the font is to go back to the Formatting toolbar, and use that. You'll see the current size of the font that you're using beside the type of font.

In our example above, it's 12. If you click the arrow to the right of the 12, it will give you other font sizes to select. We're going to change ours back to 10. (We already changed the font type to Arial.)

As you can see, the snapshot above is the same as the first snapshot we looked at in this article, but you can also see how, when we changed the font size and type, the appearance of the worksheet also changed slightly.

Add Borders and Colors to Cells

Adding borders and colors to cells is something that's fun to do because you can really get fancy with the worksheet or simply highlight things that you want to stand out.

You can add borders to your cells by going to the Formatting toolbar or by going to Format>Cells, then clicking on the Borders tab. We'll cover both, of course, starting with the Formatting toolbar.

This is the icon for borders, located on the Formatting toolbar. To add a border around a cell, first select the cell. Then click the arrow beside the borders icon and select the type of border you want. We've put a solid, thick border around the cell pictured below.

If you go to Format>Cells, then click on the Border tab, you'll see this dialogue box appear:

You can select no border, border that outlines the outside of the cell, or border that goes inside the cell in the Presets section.

In the Border section, you can select where you want the border to appear. Select all sides of the cell where you want the border, then if you want any inside the cell. In the Line section, you can select the border style.

To select the border color, go to the Color section on the Borders tab and select a color from the dropdown menu.

Notice how the color and border make this cell stand out:

Note: You can also change the borders, colors, and even font and font size by selecting a cell, right clicking your mouse, and select Format Cells.

Changing Column Width

In MS Excel 2003, the width of a column is determined by how many characters that can be displayed within a cell. The maximum width for a column is 255 if the default font and font size is used. The minimum width is zero, of course. If a column width is zero, the column will be hidden.

To Set a Column to a Specific Width

Select the column that you want to format. Go to Format>Column>Width. A box will appear that looks like the one below.

Type in the width of the column, keeping in mind that it reflects the number of characters that can be displayed.

Change the Width of the Column to Fit the Contents

Maybe you just want to make sure that the columns are wide enough to display all the contents, but you don't want to take the time to count characters. Perhaps you aren't even sure how many characters there will be, but want to make sure the column will be wide enough anyway.

Select the column or columns that you want to change. Go to Format>Column>AutoFit Selection.

Match the Column Width to Another Column's Width

• Select a cell in the column whose width you want to match.

• Click Copy in the Standard toolbar.

• Select the column whose width you want to change.

• Go to Edit>Paste Special>Column Widths.

Change the Default Width for All Columns in a Worksheet or Workbook

To change a default column width for a worksheet, click the worksheet tab to make the worksheet active. To change it for the entire workbook, click a worksheet tab, then right click, and select Select All Sheets.

Go to Format>Column>Standard Width.

In the Standard Column Width box, type the new measurement.

Change the Width of Columns by Moving the Mouse

To change the width of one column using your mouse, drag the right side of the column to the right until you reach the desired width. To do so, move your mouse to the line separating two columns until you see horizontal arrows appear.

To change the width of multiple columns, select the columns that you want to change, then drag the right side of one column to its desired width.

To change the width of all the columns in a worksheet, select the entire worksheet by clicking the box to the left of column A and above row 1, then dragging the boundary of any column.

Changing Row Height

Change the Row to a Specific Height

Select the row(s) that you want to change.

Go to Format>Row>Height and enter in the height that you want.

Change Row Height to Fit Contents

Select the rows(s) that you want to change.

Go to Format>Row>AutoFit.

If you want to AutoFit all the rows in a worksheet, select all the cells, then go to Format>Row>AutoFit.

Change a Row Height by Dragging the Mouse

Drag the boundary below a row to adjust its height. To adjust the height of multiple rows, select the rows, then drag the boundary of one of them.

Merge Cells

Merging cells simply means that you merge a group of cells into one cell. It is not the same as combining cells because when you combine cells, the data in those cells is also combined. When you merge cells, the information in the upper left cell is centered in the merged cell. If the content you want in the merged cells is not in the upper left cell, then you must copy and paste the data into the upper left cell.

To merge cells:

Note: It's important to remember that the cells you merge must be adjacent.

Select the cells to be merged.

On the Formatting toolbar, click Merge and Center .

Important Note: The cells that you merge cannot be active. Merge and Center will not appear if any cells are active.

Apply Number Formats and Create Custom Number Formats

You can change the appearance of numbers in MS Excel 2003 without changing the value behind those numbers. The actual value is always displayed in the formula bar.

For example, we can have a number formatted like this in the worksheet:

But in the formula bar, it's still displayed like this:

You can apply a number format to a cell by selecting the cell(s) that you want to format, right clicking, and selecting Format Cells and select the Number tab. You can also go to Format>Cells, then select the Number tab.

In the dialogue box above, you can choose the type of number formatting that you want from the Category box. An explanation of how the formatting is used appears at the bottom of the dialogue box when you click on a specific type of number formatting.

Creating Custom Number Formatting

If you go to the dialogue box above, and click Custom in the Category box, you can then create a custom number formatting based on an existing number format in MS Excel 2003.

In the Type list, select the format that you want to edit and edit it in the Type box.

Align Cell Contents

You can align the data in a cell to the left, right, or center.

To align data to the left means to align it to the left side of the cell. Simply select the cell(s) that contain the data that you want to align to the left. Click on the icon on the Formatting toolbar.

To align data to the right: Select the cells that contain the data, then click on the icon on the Formatting toolbar.

To center the cell contents: Select the appropriate cells, then click the icon on the Formatting toolbar.

AutoFormats

Your worksheets can contain a lot of data that might be hard to browse through. It helps to apply colors, different fonts and font sizes, etc. However, if you're new to MS Excel 2003, adding all these things may be difficult and time consuming.

MS Excel 2003 offers 17 pre-created formats that you can use. These are called AutoFormats. They cover six different areas:

• Borders
• Number Formatting
• Background color
• Alignment
• Cell and row size
• Fonts

To apply an AutoFormat, go to Format>AutoFormat.

Simply select the formatting you want and click OK.

If you want to restrict the types of formatting done with the AutoFormat feature, click Options.

In the Formats to Apply section, you can select which AutoFormats you want to apply: number, border, fonts, patterns, alignment, or width/height.

Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting is a neat little feature of MS Excel 2003 because it helps you do your job better. Let's say that you're entering in employees' work hours into a spreadsheet. Your boss has told you to let him know if anyone exceeds more than eight hours in any given day. Did you know that you Excel can notify you each time this happens? You can program MS Excel 2003 to give you a "red flag" every time a certain situation exists.

To apply conditional formatting, go to Format>Conditional Formatting.

Now, select the condition that you want MS Excel to notify you about. For this example, we've asked MS Excel 2003 to notify us of any cells whose value is between 25 and 26.

Next, select a format that will signify the "red flag". Whenever MS Excel 2003, as in this example, finds a cell with a value between 25 and 26, it will be boldfaced. (We chose that format.)

As you can see, you can choose font, font size, border, and patterns as your "red flags" to use whenever MS Excel 2003 finds a situation that you've programmed it to look for.

Styles

If you frequently use the same formatting options for the cells in your worksheets, you may want to create a formatting style to save you time. A formatting style is a collection of formatting choices. It may include, but not be limited to, font, font size, and color.

To create a new style, first format a cell with the selection of styles that you want. This is the easiest way to do it. Then go to Format>Style.

We've chosen, for an example, to create a style using the format in this cell:

When we go to Format>Style, this dialogue box appears:

As you can see, the style for the cell above does not appear in the dialogue box yet because we have to enter a name for this style in the Style Name box. Normal is the default name and the default style. We want our custom style.

We've named our new formatting style ‘Example.'

Click Add.

You can also create a custom formatting style from scratch by modifying the Normal or any other of the default styles.

Applying Styles

When you want to apply a style to a worksheet, select the cells that you want to apply the style to, then go to Format>Style. Select the style from the drop down box and click OK.