Goodwill Community Foundation creating
opportunities for a better life in Excel
every workbook is different that means
you may want to modify certain things
like the size and layout of your cell to
better fit the data you're working with
this column has been resized for example
but not quite enough most of the text is
still getting cut off I'm going to
increase the width a little bit more by
positioning my mouse over the line in
the column heading then clicking and
dragging it to the right another option
is to auto size the column this will
automatically adjust the width so that
it fits the contents of the cells
exactly just double-click the line
instead of dragging it now the column is
perfectly sized to the text rows work
the same way you can adjust them
manually or auto size them to fit the
height of your text sometimes it's
useful to be able to resize all of your
cells at once in this example I'd like
to make all of my rows the exact same
height to do this click the Select All
button in the top left corner then
resize a row it doesn't matter which one
and the change will be applied to the
entire worksheet next I need to add
another row to this list I'd like to put
it in between row 4 and row 5 to add a
new row all you have to do is select the
row heading below where you want the new
one to appear then click the insert
command
the process is similar for inserting a
new column just select the column
heading to the right of where you want
the new one to go click the insert
command and a column will appear to the
left deleting columns and rows is just
as easy first select the column or row
you want to delete then click the delete
command the column or row will be
deleted causing the other cells to move
and fill in the gap automatically just
remember that there is a difference
between clearing and deleting deleting
cells removes them from your worksheet
clearing just removes the contents you
can also move a column or row to a
different location
in this example we'll move a column all
you have to do is select the one you
want then click the cut command next
select the column to the right of where
you want the column to be moved click
the insert drop-down menu on the ribbon
then choose insert cut cells another
useful technique for rearranging data is
the ability to hide certain columns or
rows for example I don't really need to
see these three columns right now I'd
rather focus on the customers email
addresses if we right click then choose
hide from the menu
the columns temporarily disappear to
unhide them select the columns on either
side of the ones that are hidden
then right-click again and choose unhide
let's fast forward to the finished
worksheet next I'd like to take a look
at wrapping text which is one way of
addressing cells that contain more text
than they can actually display for
example I'd like to resize my column of
addresses to about half its current size
but still be able to see the contents we
can do this using the wrap text command
on the ribbon as you can see this
displays the text on multiple lines now
for the finishing touch
combining the cells in the top row so
the title of my worksheet can be
centered in a single large cell to do
this select the cells you want to merge
then click the merge & Center command
there that's perfect to access more
merge options open the drop down menu
here you can merge across creating
merged rows instead of a single large
cell if you have multiple cells selected
you can also merge without centering or
split your cells up again there is a
downside to using the merge command
though if you want to merge multiple
cells each containing data merge will
only keep the contents of the upper left
cell and discard everything else so you
should be careful when using this
feature the best way to learn about
merging cells wrapping text and working
with columns and rows is to practice so
the next time you're using Excel look
for ways that you can customize your
worksheet to better fit your data
you