Most spreadheets have some sort of formatting applied to them to make them easier to read and understand. Often you will want to create a border around a group of cells to differentiate them from others, or to put them in to a table.
There are two main ways that you can create a border in Excel.
The first is to draw the border using your mouse. You can draw a border along any cells you wish either horizontally or vertically. To do this: select the “Border options” button from the ribbon; this is the small arrow to the right of the actual “Border” button. This will display a list of options – click on the “Draw Border Line” option in the lower section of the list under the heading “Drawing Borders.”
With this option selected, your mouse cursor will become a pencil. You can now create borders by pressing and holding the left mouse button from where you want to start and dragging it to where you want it to end. You can either create a straight line or drag around a group of cells to draw a box around them.
If you want to draw a grid within your box use the “Draw Border Grid” button beneath the “Draw Border Line” option you used before.
All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course. Once you have mastered these skills you will be ready to attend our Advanced Excel Training Course, and really advanced might want to try VBA for Excel in Brighton, Sussex.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
As well as being able to draw borders by hand, Excel also provides some pre-set options that you can apply to groups of cells. This will be covered in our Microsoft Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.
To do this, highlight the cells that you wish to affect and then, using the “Border Options” button in the Formatting section of the ribbon, select the border Style you want around them. The options are in the top section of the drop down menu under “Borders” as shown below:
Tip: To save time, simply pressing the Border button will apply the border style you used last which will save you having to choose it from the drop-down menu each time.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
Customising Borders
In addition to the standard templates in Excel 2007, you can also customise your borders, adjusting their width, colour and line style. These options are contained in the Formatting section of the ribbon and the Border Options button. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course in Brighton, Sussex.
You can also, as in Microsoft Word, change the font and style of the figures and words that you put into your cells, as well as being able to change their size and underline them. Simply highlight the cells you want to format and then select the appropriate border, font and text formatting options you require from the Formatting section.
Changing Cell Size
We’ve already explored how to wrap text to make it fit in to a small cell – however it is also possible to change the width and height of the cell columns and rows themselves.
To alter the row height, move your cursor over the column on the far left of your screen, to the left of A1, where the numbers of the rows are shown. Hover the mouse arrow over the division between two cells, i.e. the top of A2 and the bottom of A1, until it changes to an icon shaped like a cross with directional arrows at either end. Now all you need to do is click and hold the left mouse button and drag the up or down and the height of the cell row will change. The same method is used for changing the width of the cells, by clicking on the divisions between the columns at the top of the spreadsheet.
Once you have mastered these skills you will be ready to attend our Advanced Excel Training Course, and really advanced might want to try VBA for Excel.
Read more
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
