Part I: Getting Started with Excel
displayed to the right of the group name in the Ribbon.) When you display the
Format Cells dialog box using a dialog box launcher, the dialog box is displayed
with the appropriate tab visible.
■ Right-click the selected cell or range and choose Format Cells from the shortcut
menu.
■ Click the More command in some of the drop-down controls in the Ribbon. For
example, the Home ➪ Font ➪ Border drop-down includes an item named More
Borders.
The Format Cells dialog box contains six tabs: Number, Alignment, Font, Border, Fill, and
Protection. The following sections contain more information about the formatting options
available in this dialog box.
Formatting Your Worksheet
Excel offers most of the same formatting options as other Office applications like Word or
PowerPoint. As you might expect, cell-related formatting like fill color and borders feature
more prominently in Excel than some of the other applications.
Using fonts to format your worksheet
You can use different fonts, font sizes, or text attributes in your worksheets to make vari-
ous parts, such as the headers for a table, stand out. You also can adjust the font size. For
example, using a smaller font allows for more information on a single screen or printed
page.
By default, Excel uses the 11-point (pt) Calibri font. A font is described by its typeface
(Calibri, Cambria, Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New, and so on) as well as by its size,
measured in points. (Seventy-two points equal one inch.) Excel’s row height, by default, is
15 pt. Therefore, 11-pt type entered into 15-pt rows leaves a small amount of blank space
between the characters in vertically adjacent rows.
If you haven’t manually changed a row’s height, Excel automatically adjusts the row height based on the tallest text
that you enter into the row.
If you plan to distribute a workbook to other users, remember that Excel does not embed fonts. Therefore, you should
stick with the standard fonts that are included with Windows or Microsoft Office. If you open a workbook and your
system doesn’t have the font used in the workbook, Windows attempts to use a similar font. Sometimes this attempt
works okay; other times it doesn’t.
