Excel not only performs calculations but also allows us to give a good visual presentation to our worksheet by projecting the most interesting information, and in this way we can perceive the most imporatant information with just one look and come to conclusions in a quick and efficient manner. Eg, we can deliver an account of all our expenses and earnings of the year, and make the orders in colour red and the earnings in colour green so as to easily see whether the year has been good or bad.

Next we see the different options availible in Excel2003 with regard to the changing of the aspect of the cells in a worksheet, and how to manage them in order to modify the type and aspect of the letters, the alignment, shadows, and how we visualize numbers in the cell.

Font

Excel allows us to change the appearence of the data in a worksheet by changing the font, the size, the style and the colour of the data in the cell.

To change the appearence of the data in our worksheet, we can use the menu bar or the toolbar, we will explain these next. With either method we need to first select the cells that are going to be modified.

Using the menu bar:

From the menu bar drop down the Format menu.

Select the Cells... option.

From the Format cells dialog box that appears select the Font tab and the box on the right will appear.

Once you have selected all the desired aspects, clic on OK.

As we change the font values, we see that in the Preview it shows us how the current selection will look in the cell.

This is very useful at the time of selecting the format most suitable to our needs.

We will next explain the different options of the Font tab.

Font: Selected from a predefined list, that is, a type of letter.

If we select a type of letter with the icon before the name it indicates to us that the type of font selected is the True type, that is, the same font is used on the screen as the printer, and it is also on a free scale (we can write a font size even if this size is not available in the list of availible sizes).

Style: Is selected from a list of predetermined styles. Not all of the styles are availible with each type of letter. The possible styles are: Normal, cursive, Bold, Bold cursive.

Size: Depending on the font selected, it will select one size or another. It can be selected from a list or typed in directly once situated in the box.

Underline: Observe how the active option is None, and by clicking on the arrow to the right a drop down list appears where you will need to select the type of underline.

Color: The defect colour is Automatic, but by clicking on the arrow to the right you can select a colour for the letters.

Effects: We have 3 different options here: Strikethrough, subscript, and superscript. To activate or deactivate one of these, clic on the verification box found on the left.

Normal font: If this option is active, it will return all the font options that Excel2003 has by default.

On the Toolbar we have various buttons available that permit us to modify some of the options seen before, and in a fast manner such as:

In this box we find the type of font or letter of the cell in which we are situated. To change this, click on the arrow to the right to select a different type.

Equal to the font button seen before, appears the size of our cell, and to change it we can select another from the arrow to the right, or write it directly into the box.

This button is used to activate Bold or remove it. Just click to change between the two.

The same as the Bold button, but this is for the Cursive option.

This button functions the same, this one for a simple Underline.

With this button we can select a font color. Under the letter A appears a line, in our case red, which indicates that if we clic on the button it will change to this colour. In case of wanting a different colour, clic on the arrow to the right and select.

If you are unsure of how to perform any of these operations we recommend that you perform the Font exercise.

If you want to continue with this unit go to the next page...

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