Excel 2010 Bible

Part III: Creating Charts and Graphics

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Figure 22.3 shows a worksheet with some Shapes that use various types of formatting.

As an alternative to the Ribbon, you can use the Format Shape dialog box. Right-click the Shape

and choose Format Shape from the shortcut menu. You’ll get a stay-on-top tabbed dialog box that

contains some additional formatting options that aren’t on the Ribbon. Changes appear immedi-

ately, and you can keep the Format Shape dialog box open while you work.

I could probably write 20 pages about formatting Shapes, but it would be a waste of paper and cer-

tainly not a very efficient way of learning about Shape formatting. The best way, by far, to learn

about formatting Shapes is to experiment. Create some shapes, click some commands, and see

what happens. The commands are fairly intuitive, and you can always use Undo if a command

doesn’t do what you expected it to do.

FIGURE 22.3

A variety of Shapes.

Grouping objects

Excel lets you combine (or group) two or more Shape objects into a single object. For example, if

you create a design that uses four separate Shapes, you can combine them into a group. Then, you

can manipulate this group as a single object (move it, resize it, apply formatting, and so on).

To group objects, press Ctrl while you click the objects to be included in the group. Then right-

click and choose Group ➪ Group from the shortcut menu.

When objects are grouped, you can still work with an individual object in the group. Click once to

select the group; then click again to select the object.

To ungroup a group, right-click the group object and choose Group ➪ Ungroup from the shortcut

menu. This command breaks the object into its original components.