This video is a tutorial on formatting for Microsoft excel version 2010. I am going to
be using different examples to illustrate techniques of formatting. This first example
on sheet one shows four columns of data. Unfortunately none of this data is labeled. Since the data
has no labels it makes it extremely difficult for the user to understand what the data corresponds
to. I am going to insert labels above these columns of data. To do this I am going to
insert a single row by hovering my mouse over the number 1 for row 1 and right clicking
it give me the options to insert. This inserts a single row above the selected row. I am
going to insert a second one for additional data in a minute. This first column is a list
of lengths corresponding to the side of a cube. I am going to type the data label in
this cell. As you can see the label extended beyond the end of this cell into the next
one. To correct this I am going to wrap the text within the one cell. The button for this
is on the home tab in the section alignment. It wraps the text to three lines within one
cell. By extending the width of the cell a little bit I can get it to two lines. This
makes it easier to read. I am also going to alter the height of the cell to make the text
fit completely within the cell including no additional space. This next column is the
volume of a cube using the length of the side from the previous column. I am also going
to wrap the text in this one. The third column is the surface area of the cube. I am also
going to widen this cell to make room for the title. This final column is the volume
to area ratio and since I had wrapped the text in all of the other cells it automatically
wrapped the text in this final one. Generally you would want to also include the units that
correspond with this data. In this case since the numbers would remain the same no matter
the units used I am not going to include it as long as it is consistent through the length,
volume and surface area. Now that my columns are labeled a user looking at this data can
understand what it means but it is still missing something. One of the most important things
about a spreadsheet is to include the name and date at the top of the spreadsheet for
the author and when the spreadsheet was created. I am going to add two more rows at the top
of this sheet. Now this first row I am going to include a name. Now I am also going to
include today's date. There are different ways to enter the date. One of the easiest
is typing a formula by entering equal sign and then the word today followed by an open
parenthesis and closed parenthesis. By pressing enter it will but the date within that cell.
You can also enter the date manually. If you notice up here the cell has the format of
general. This means it will automatically select what type of formatting to use. When
I enter the date it changes this to custom to display this in a different format. There
are several different formats to show the date. Since I already have the date entered
I am going to delete that line. One of the next things to include at the top of the sheet
is the class and assignment. If this is not for a class you do not need to worry about
including this. Since this particular example is not for a class I am going to type an explanation
for what this workbook is for. Finally I need to title this particular spreadsheet. With
all of this information at the top it doesn't look very nice going from the top to the bottom
of the data. I am going to insert another row. This separates the information at the
top with the data at the bottom. To make the data easier to follow you can also change
the formatting of the labels to make them stand out. For example if you bold it then
it will darken the text and make it easier to notice and read. With this example I am
also going to change the alignment to center to make these labels completely centered within
their individual cells. The next example I have is on sheet 2. In this sheet the data
was labeled at the top as temperature versus year. Unfortunately you cannot tell whether
this temperature is Fahrenheit or Celsius or what this data corresponds to. I am going
to alter this label first by putting its units. Since the cell next to it already has information
entered the rest of this label disappeared so I am going to wrap the text but as you
notice the word Fahrenheit is too long to fit within the cell so it wraps the word itself.
To simplify this I am going to shorten Fahrenheit to just an "F". Now the year corresponds to
a specific location. Unfortunately this does not tell you the location but instead of including
it in this label I am going to add a title to the spreadsheet for "Average Temperature
of Colorado Springs, CO". Whenever a user comes to this particular sheet they can see
immediately what this data corresponds to. It is good etiquette to include the name and
date at the top of every sheet but this is not required as long as you have it at the
top of the first sheet then you do not need to include it on the rest of them. In this
case however I am going to go ahead and copy these two rows and insert the copied rows
above the title of this spreadsheet. Now whenever some one looks at any of the sheet they can
automatically see who created the sheet, the date and what this workbook is for. My final
example is on sheet 3. This particular example is from a different video but we are going
to format it to make it easier to follow. The title of this spreadsheet is metric conversions
but I am going to go ahead and insert the name and information from the previous sheet
in the top of this one just to make sure that it is consistent through all of the sheets.
The first conversion example is temperature. To make this stand out from the actual temperature
labels I am going to bold it and I am going to do the same with length. Technically this
is all you need to do because someone looking at this sheet can go and see that the temperature
from Fahrenheit to Celsius is this and that these conversion are through different units
of length but I think I can make this look nicer. First since this information "distance
from Boulder, CO to New York, NY" isn't part of the actual data I am going to italicize
that. When the user looks at this sheet they can see that this is additional information
about the data. Since this data also is converting to metric units I am going to change the formatting
of the metric units to demonstrate that this is the answer on the sheet. An easy way to
do this it to write click on the selected cells and go down to format cells. Here you
can see several different options on formatting. The number tab will change the formatting
for the different categories. What I want to change in this particular one is to add
a border around the cells. I am just going to include an outline. When I click on outline
and then ok there is a black bar surround Celsius and the final temperature in Celsius.
I am going to do the same for these down here however in this case since there are three
different rows I am also going to include a horizontal line that separates the rows.
I select ok and now you can see that each of these rows has an individual box around
it. If this was for a homework assignment each of these sheets would be considered another
problem. In that case you would want to change the name of the sheet to correspond with that.
If I go back to sheet 1 and this is problem 1. You double click on the name sheet 1 and
change it to problem 1. You would do that for each of these. Let's say that you wanted
to put the data from two different problems on the same sheet. Since both of these problems
have their data in columns it would work to put them together. To do so you would want
to separate your data in another way. I am going to add a few more rows here and label
my information Problem 1 which I am going to bold and underline to make sure that it
is easily visible. Then here Problem 2 I will do the same kind of formatting. When I go
to problem 2 I just highlight this information then click control and "C" to copy. I go to
problem 1 and press control and "V" to paste. Now I have both problem 1 and problem 2 labelled
on the same spread sheet. Since the problem 2 sheet now has information that already copied
some place else we can right click on that sheet and delete it. Problem 3's information
is set up in a different way. It is not in the same kind of column that problems 1 and
2 are. In this case it is a good idea to leave it on its own sheet.