the look and feel of your spreadsheet
and whether or not it's going to be easy
to read has a lot to do with the
formatting choices you make formatting
the text and some of the cells in this
fitness chart for example could really
add interest and make the data easier to
read I'd like to start by selecting the
cell that contains Fitness progress
chart and making the text bigger like a
proper title just go to the font group
on the Home tab and click the drop down
arrow next to size you'll see a preview
of the results as you go down the list I
think 16 looks good maybe we could go a
little bigger though grow and shrink are
another option for changing the font
size just click and perfect to change
the actual font click the drop down
arrow here and make your way through the
list you'll get that live preview again
I think I like this one because it's
different but still very easy to read
which makes it a good choice for the
title so how about color these are your
options you can go with one of the theme
colors here or if you don't see anything
you like click more colors this bright
orange should fit the color scheme I
have in mind another way to make your
text stand out is to use bold italic or
underlined let's try italic and maybe
bold too there that's more like what I
was going for now I'm ready to add some
formatting to the rest of the worksheet
at a glance it's kind of hard to tell
the header row from the rest of the
chart because it just lacks definition
we can easily fix that by giving the
header a unique fill color all you have
to do is open the menu next to the fill
color command and make your choice a
great dark blue now I just need to
change my text to something lighter I
also want to show you how to change the
placement or alignment of your text
using the options in the alignment group
in addition to left center and right
text can be aligned to the bottom middle
or top of the cell aligning the header
text in the middle center should make it
nice and easy to read why don't we give
the rest of the charts in color now
and then modify the whole thing to
include borders that will define the
cells the borders command gives you lots
of options including top and bottom
borders a thick outside border even
different line colors and line styles
for a border that goes around the
outside and in between cells
choose all borders finally one of excels
most useful features is its ability to
format dates and numbers depending on
what you need for example it would help
me to know not only the dates that I
took these measurements but also the
days of the week just click the drop
down arrow for the number format command
and choose a format in my case the long
date you can accomplish a lot of things
with data number formatting take this
column of percentages just numbers with
a decimal place switching to the
percentage format will instantly display
them properly there we go
what a big difference formatting can
make not only does my worksheet look
nice it's also easier to read and
understand the data
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