Aligning Data in Cells


Objective: To alter the positions of data within and across cells.

Instructions: You will use the Alignment tab from the Format Cells command and also a toolbar shortcut.

Comments: The ability to alter the width and height of cells necessarily means that the position of the text within the cells may not look right. Excel provides facilities for altering this.

Activity 5.1 The series of quarterly titles would look much better if they were centered in their cells rather than pushed into one corner for the file of tut26.xls. Select the range B6:G6 by clicking and dragging the mouse. Now go to the Format menu and select the Cells... option From the resulting dialogue box select the Alignment tab. The Alignment dialogue box will look like the one below.

Activity 5.2 There are a large number of options here, arranged into the three groups Horizontal, Vertical and Orientation. For now just select Center from the Horizontal group and Center from the Vertical group, and click <OK>. The titles should be centered in their cells.

Activity 5.3 Select the range A1:G1. This covers the range of columns that the table is in. Move the mouse to the toolbar and select the Center across selection tool . The text "Sales for VINO plc" is centered across the entire table.

Activity 5.4 Select cell H7. We are going to put some explanatory text into this cell, so type the following: "The sales figures on average are above the targets our sales team set. The only exception in these results was due to illness". Press <Enter>.

The text is on one line and stretches out of view of the spreadsheet. Now select the range H6:J10. Go to the Edit menu and select the command Fill Justify.

The text is redistributed across the cells in the selection.

Note The Fill Justify command on the Edit menu is different from the Justify option in the Alignment box of Format Cells which only operates within cell boundaries.



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Last Updated Monday, 25-Aug-1997 13:03:48 PDT