Text Alignment

Text alignment refers to how text appears in a particular cell. You can change the alignment of the text both horizontally as well as vertically.

The type of text alignment you select will depend on the type of data that you are working with. For instance, when you are dealing with numbers (money, quantity, etc.) you are more likely to align them right or center (horizontal alignment).

As an example, all the currency values in the image below are right-aligned.

In addition to the vertical and horizontal alignment options, the text can also be aligned in different ways using the Orientation Options as shown below in the image.

These options allow us to rotate text up, down, vertical, and at different angles. 

Format Painter

This is an extremely useful tool in case you need to copy the formatting from a cell or a range to another cell or a range.

To use this tool, select the cell or range which has the desired formatting. Click on the Format Painter tool once and click on the cell or range where you want the formatting to be copied. With two clicks you can copy the formatting easily.

In case your cells are scattered across the sheet and you want to copy particular formatting to multiple scattered cells, then you can double click on the Format Painter and click on these scattered cells one after the other.

When you double click the Format Painter, you will see a small paintbrush icon next to the cursor that will appear indicating that you can apply the formatting to multiple cells by clicking them one after the other.

Once you are done applying the formatting on the cells, you can press the escape button on the keyboard to stop applying the formatting further.

Wrap Text

Each cell in Excel has a defined width, which can be adjusted in multiple ways. Once you select the width for a cell, the content may be displayed only as much as the cell width allows.

If the adjacent cell(s) on right does not contain any data, then your content may overrun on that adjacent cell(s). However, if the adjacent cell on right has data, then your sentences may not be displayed in their entirety.

Wrap Text allows you to display data by wrapping it in multiple lines within the cell. 

In the above example, the content of cell 2D is not getting displayed completely as there is data in cell 2E. We can see the content of cell 3D spill over to cell 3E as there is no data (yet) in cell 3E. In either case, this is not the best way to present your data.

In such situations, you can click on Wrap Text (as shown in image below) and format the text in cells 2D and 3D to display in their entirety, irrespective of their length or whether data is present in the adjacent cell(s).

Merge Cells

At times there is a need to merge two cells or more and write data in the merged cell. This is usually used in scenarios such as

If we look at the example below cells Q5, R5 and S5 have been merged as a single cell and the text “Sales during the month” is displayed in that merged cell.

To use this option, you will need to select the cells that you need to merge and then click on Merge & Center or any other option in the drop-down that may be relevant.

In case there is data in the cells that you are merging, then Excel will retain the data of only the leftmost cell.

Cell Styles

Excel has defined some commonly used formatted cell types. These significantly improve productivity and helps you in formatting your workbooks quickly.

Since these formatting styles are commonly used, other Excel users working on Excel workbooks prepared by you are likely to easily understand the type of data (input, calculation, output, etc.) that a particular cell may contain.

You also have the flexibility to start with a predefined style and make some amends to it as per your need. These pre-formatted styles are available in the Styles Group of Home Ribbon.

You can even define your custom style by clicking on the 'New Cell Style…' option. When you click on this option you can see the Style dialog box with details of the current formatting in the cell.

If you want to retain the formatting, then provide a Style name and save the style by clicking on the Ok button. You also have the option to change the formatting by clicking on the Format… button. Clicking this button opens the Format Cells dialog box, where you can define the type, alignment, font, border type, etc. Once you have defined the style as per your preference, you can provide a Style name and save the style by clicking the Ok button.

Format Cell Border

Excel allows you to select the type of border you want for a cell or a set of cells.

You can either apply the border to a single cell or a range of cells. You could even apply borders to only one or a few sides of a cell by selecting the side of the cell to which you want to apply the border to.

Below is an illustration of a table where only the bottom border (double underline) has been applied to a few cells.

At first, formatting cell borders may appear to be a tool that you can utilize to make your tables look presentable. However, with smart formatting, you can not only make your data or tables look good, but also smartly build formulas around them. Here is an example:

In the above example, the text looks like a sentence. However, column J does not have a right border and column K is without the left border, which gives an illusion that this is a continuous sentence. Column K only contains names of cities and nothing else. If we need to write formulas in column L referring to the cities mentioned in column L we can easily do that and will not need to write them separately in another cell or as part of the formula.

Hide/Unhide Columns or Rows

Excel provides you the flexibility to hide a few columns or rows. This is useful when you want to focus on part of the table. With rows, there is an option to filter them if they meet certain criteria, which may be an alternative to hiding them instead.

Hiding columns can be particularly useful in scenarios where you are working on tables with a large number of columns and you need to focus only on a few. You could hide the columns temporarily that may not be required.

Hiding the column does not delete the data in those columns; they are merely invisible to us. To hide a column, the steps are as below:

To Unhide a column or a set of hidden columns, the steps are as below.

Write on Multiple Lines

There are times when you need to write multiple lines in Excel cells, one below the other as illustrated in cell D4 below. However, Excel does not offer a bullets option. Whenever you press Enter the cursor moves to the next cell.

To be able to type in multiple lines there is a simple solution that Excel offers. Once you have written a line completely and you want to go to the next line, you need to press Alt + Enter (in Windows) or Control + Option + Return (in Mac). This will take your cursor to the next line in the same cell.