Excel 2010 Bible

Chapter 6: Worksheet Formatting

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Office 2007 introduced several new fonts, and the default font has been changed for all the Office

applications. In versions prior to Excel 2007, the default font was 10 pt Arial. In Excel 2007 and Excel

2010, the default font for the Office theme is 11 pt Calibri. Most people will agree that Calibri is much

easier to read, and it gives the worksheet a more modern appearance.

If you open a workbook created in a pre-Excel 2007 version, the default font will not be changed, even

if you apply a document style (by choosing Page Layout ➪ Themes ➪ Themes). But here’s an easy way

to update the fonts in a workbook that was created using an older version of Excel:

1. Press Ctrl+N to open a new, empty workbook. The new workbook will use the default
   document theme.


2. Open your old workbook file.


3. Choose Home ➪ Styles ➪ Cell Styles ➪ Merge Styles. Excel displays its Merge Styles
   dialog box.


4. In the Merge Styles dialog box, select the new workbook that you created in Step 1.


5. Click OK.


6. Click Yes in response to Excel’s question regarding merging styles that have the same name.

This technique changes the font and size for all unformatted cells. If you’ve applied font formatting to

some cells (for example, made them bold), the font for those cells will not be changed (but you can

change the font manually). If you don’t like the new look of your workbook, just close the workbook

without saving the changes.

Using Different Fonts to Format Your Worksheet .............................................................

You can use different fonts, sizes, or text attributes in your worksheets to make various 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 page.

By default, Excel uses 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 pt 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

adjacent rows.

Tip
If you’ve not manually changed a row’s height, Excel automatically adjusts the row height based on the tallest
text that you enter into the row. n

Updating Old Fonts