Part I: Getting Started with Excel
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l (^) Drag the right-column border with the mouse until the column is the desired width.
l Choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Column Width and enter a value in the Column
Width dialog box.
l Choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ AutoFit Column Width to adjust the width of the
selected column so that the widest entry in the column fits. Rather than selecting an entire
column, you can just select cells in the column, and the column is adjusted based on the
widest entry in your selection.
l Double-click the right border of a column header to set the column width automatically to
the widest entry in the column.
Tip
To change the default width of all columns, choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Column ➪ Default Width.
This command displays a dialog box into which you enter the new default column width. All columns that
haven’t been previously adjusted take on the new column width. n
Caution
After you manually adjust a column’s width, Excel will no longer automatically adjust the column to accommo-
date longer numerical entries. You need to change the column width manually. n
Changing row heights ......................................................................................
Row height is measured in points (pt; a standard unit of measurement in the printing trade — 72
pt is equal to 1 inch). The default row height using the default font is 15 pt, or 20 px.The default row height can vary, depending on the font defined in the Normal style. In addition,
Excel automatically adjusts row heights to accommodate the tallest font in the row. So, if you change
the font size of a cell to 20 pt, for example, Excel makes the row taller so that the entire text is visible.You can set the row height manually, however, by using any of the following techniques. As with
columns, you can select multiple rows.l (^) Drag the lower row border with the mouse until the row is the desired height.
l Choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Row Height and enter a value (in points) in the Row
Height dialog box.
l Double-click the bottom border of a row to set the row height automatically to the tallest
entry in the row. You also can choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Autofit Row Height
for this task.
Changing the row height is useful for spacing out rows and is almost always preferable to inserting
empty rows between lines of data.