Excel 2010 Bible

Part I: Getting Started with Excel

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Creating new styles .................................................................................................

In addition to using Excel’s built-in styles, you can create your own styles. This flexibility can be

quite handy because it enables you to apply your favorite formatting options very quickly and

consistently.

To create a new style, follow these steps:

1. Select a cell and apply all the formatting that you want to include in the new style.
   You can use any of the formatting that is available in the Format Cells dialog box (refer to
   Figures 6-3 and 6-5).


2. After you format the cell to your liking, choose Home ➪ Styles ➪ Cell Styles, and
   choose New Cell Style. Excel displays its Style dialog box (refer to Figure 6-13), along
   with a proposed generic name for the style. Note that Excel displays the words By
   Example to indicate that it’s basing the style on the current cell.


3. Enter a new style name in the Style Name field. The check boxes display the current
   formats for the cell. By default, all check boxes are selected.


4. (Optional) If you don’t want the style to include one or more format categories,
   remove the check(s) from the appropriate check box(es).


5. Click OK to create the style and to close the dialog box.

After you perform these steps, the new custom style is available when you choose

Home ➪ Styles ➪ Cell Styles. Custom styles are available only in the workbook in which they were

created. To copy your custom styles to another workbook, see the section that follows.

Note
The Protection option in the Style dialog box controls whether users will be able to modify cells for the
selected style. This option is effective only if you’ve also turned on worksheet protection, by choosing
Review ➪ Changes ➪ Protect Sheet. n

Merging styles from other workbooks .....................................................................

Custom styles are stored with the workbook in which they were created. If you’ve created some

custom styles, you probably don’t want to go through all the work to create copies of those styles

in each new Excel workbook. A better approach is to merge the styles from a workbook in which

you previously created them.

To merge styles from another workbook, open both the workbook that contains the styles that you

want to merge and the workbook into which you want to merge styles. From the workbook into

which you want to merge styles, choose Home ➪ Styles ➪ Cell Styles and choose Merge Styles.

Excel displays the Merge Styles dialog box that shows a list of all open workbooks. Select the

workbook that contains the styles you want to merge and click OK. Excel copies styles from the

workbook that you selected into the active workbook.