Page 48 - Excel Workbook for Dummies

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Chapter 2: Formatting the Spreadsheet 31
Entering positive numbers in the Degrees text box on the Alignment tab of the
Format cells dialog box moves the orientation of the text up, counterclockwise to
the baseline; whereas entering negative numbers in the Degrees text box moves
the text orientation down, clockwise from the baseline.
5. Remove the Gray-25% fill color from the merged super-cell A2 by selecting the
merged cell (A2 in this case) and then clicking the No Color button on the
Patterns tab of the Format Cells dialog box.

6. Remove the borders from the merged super-cell A2 by clicking the None button
under Presets on the Border tab of the Format Cells dialog box.
7. Unmerge cell A2 and return it to left horizontal and bottom vertical alignment.
To unmerge a super-cell, select it and then remove the check mark from the
Merged Cells check box on the Alignment tab of the Format Cells dialog box.
To restore left horizontal and bottom vertical alignment, select Left (Indent) on
the Horizontal drop-down list and Bottom on the Vertical drop-down list on the
Alignment tab.
8. Return the height of row 2 to its default height and then move the table title in
cell A2 to cell A1 by clicking the empty sample called None in the Presets section
on the Border tab of the Format Cells dialog box.
9. Place a top line border back on top of the skewed column headings in the cell
range B3:E3 by selecting the cell range and then clicking the sample with a line at
the top in the Border section on the Border tab of the Format Cells dialog box.
10. Move the cell pointer up to cell A1, and then check the changes you’ve made to
the formatting of your Sale table against those shown in the Solved2-5.xls work-
book file in the Chapter 2 folder. When everything checks out, save your work as
a new workbook called Spring Furniture Sale – fmt01.xls in your My Practice
Spreadsheets folder inside My Documents on your hard disk and then close the
workbook.

Using Format Painter and AutoFormat

Excel’s Format Painter and AutoFormat features are designed to make quick work of
applying complex formatting to large regions of the worksheet. Format Painter enables
you to copy the formatting you’ve applied to a single cell to many ranges, whereas
AutoFormat enables you to apply formatting to an entire table of data.
To use Format Painter, you put the cell cursor in the cell containing the formatting you
want to copy (formatting that you’ve already applied with the tools on the Formatting
toolbar or the options in the Format Cells dialog box). Then click the Format Painter
button (the one with the paintbrush icon) to copy the formatting in the current cell
(indicated by a marquee moving around inside the cell’s borders) and drag the mouse
pointer (now equipped with a paintbrush icon) through the range of cells to be format-
ted. As soon as you release the mouse button, all the formatting in the cell where you
originally clicked the Format Painter button is now transferred to the selected range
you painted.
Format Painter normally turns off the moment you release the mouse button after
dragging through the cell range to be painted. If you need to paint multiple ranges, you
need to turn on Format Painter by double-clicking its button on the Standard toolbar.
This enables you to paint as many ranges as you want by dragging through them.
When you finish copying the formatting, you must, however, remember to click the
Format Painter button on the Standard toolbar again to turn Format Painter off.