1.8 HOW TO CENTRE TEXT AND NUMBERS
You saw that by clicking inside of a cell it makes it active, so that you can make changes. We want to Centre all our numbers and the text. Here's the spreadsheet we have:
So,
we need cells A1, A2, A3 and A4 to be active. In Excel, you can do this by
highlighting the cells.
- Place your mouse over cell A1.
- Your pointer should now be in
the shape of a white cross.
- When your pointer changes to
the white cross, hold your left mouse button down and drag to cell A4.
- Let go of the left mouse button
when cells A1, A2, A3 and A4 are highlighted.
- The image below shows what you
are aiming for.
The
cells highlighted in the image above have a different color to the normal white
color of a cell. When you highlight cells, you can do things to all the cells
as a group.
To
Centre the text and numbers in our highlighted cells, try this:
From
the Excel Ribbon at the top of the screen, locate the Alignment panel. Here's
the Alignment panel in Excel:
You
can see the various alignment options laid out. These ones:
Hold
your mouse over each alignment icon and you'll see an explanation of what they
do. Click each icon and see what they do to your highlighted cells.
You
can also click the arrow in the bottom right of the Alignment panel to bring up
the Format Cells box.
When
you click the arrow, you'll see this dialogue box:
Notice
the Text Alignment section at the top of the Alignment tab. It has two
drop-down menus, one for Horizontal alignment and one for Vertical alignment.
- Click the arrow on the
Horizontal drop-down menu, the one with Left (Indent) on it.
- You'll see the following:
As
you can see, you have plenty of options to choose from in Excel. But click on
Center. Do the same for the Vertical drop-down menu. Then click OK at the
bottom of the Format Cells dialogue box.
The
text and numbers in cells A1, A2, A3 and A4 should now be centered, and your
spreadsheet will look like the one below:
Before
moving on to other types of formatting you can do in Excel, have a try of this:
- Highlight the cells A5 and A6
on your spreadsheet.
- Bring up the Format Cells
dialogue box, just as you did above.
- Make the alignment changes from
the Horizontal and Vertical drop-down menus.
- Click OK to get rid of the
dialogue box.
- Now click inside of cell A5 on
your spreadsheet and enter any number you like.
- Hit the Enter key.
The number you just entered should also be centered. So even if a cell is empty, you can still apply formatting to it.
Comments
Post a Comment