Excel Columns

[BAWC01]

Hi

I'm trying for format an Excel sheet to make it look tider and much more like a word document table. But it has calculations in a table.

Can you in Excel divide columns I need to format the layout with different Column widths and merged columns ?

thanks

Phil

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

In Excel a column cannot be subdivided into two or more columns. A column is a column.

However, you can MERGE cells -- in both rows & columns.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Skip,

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[Gavona]

As well as merging cells you can Centre across selection - this can be less troublesome.
You can also force a new line within a single cell by using Alt-Enter.


Gavin

 

[mintjulep]

Never merge cells. It creates all kinds on annoyance later.

 

[glg1]

I agree to a point with mintjulep - hold on till the end for merging if possible. Any movement of those fields creates havoc.

You may be able to get the effect of "merged" columns by doing some clever shading or coloring of the columns and selectively removing borders.

George

 

[AnotherHiggins]

->You may be able to get the effect of "merged" columns by doing some clever shading or coloring of the columns and selectively removing borders.

George,
Have a look at Format > Cells > Alignment > Horizontal > Center Across Selection (as referred to by Gavona). There are no 'clever' tricks needed.

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[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]

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[glg1]

Hi John,
Sorry for not outlining the ideas more.
The center across is a great format approach.
/
What I was going after is something a little different, a technique that I use to make the excel tables a bit more interesting - and somewhat like the autoformat tables in word. I use this only on relatively small tables - it looses its effect on big tables.

What I do is to set up my data (columns and rows) and then adjust the border (Format\cells\border) - select the border that places a line between the cells in the table. One can adjust those borders a bit to highlight the headers, etc.

Select the data - not the headers or row headers
Then I use the shadow style in the drawing toolbar - usually the shadow that goes to the down right. By adjusting the amount and angle of the shadow, one can get a nice look.
Then go back and repeat with the headers - shadow up and left. Since the shadow is acutally a drawing - one can independently move the shadow to get the look and feel needed. I also usually leave a row and a column between the headers and the data - that gives me more flexibility to adjust shadows, etc. The look is in the eye of the beholder. The keys are to do it in the right sequence and the right adjustment of the shadow. Combined with fill color, one can make interesting formats for the tables.

When finished - remove the grid lines (Tool/options/view - gridlines).

Have fun playing with this technique - I use it all the time.