In this informative blog post, we will learn how to format cells in Excel. Format cells in Excel are used to modify the cell styles and data numbers without directly changing or modifying the actual contents of the cell. With its aid, we can make multiple changes in the cells, like changing the format of the number, modifying the alignment, and altering the font and the border style, among others.

So, go through this blog to learn more about the format of cells and how it is achieved.

How to format cells in Excel?

You can format the cells in an Excel sheet in various ways, and all you need to do is apply the formatting you will perform in an entire cell or multiple cells and make the necessary changes. But first of all, we should know what kind of cell formatting it can perform. Some of the essential types of cell formatting are mentioned below:

  • Font change: Helps to change the Font type, size, style, and color
  • Alignment of text: To text format excel cells. It helps to align the text left, right, center, up, down, and middle
  • Bordering and coloring of cells: Helps change the border color and type and color of the cell.
  • Painting the format of cells: Format painter helps to make the cell look more attractive by painting the entire format and customizing it.
  • Change the style of cells: It is used to change how the cell looks with the help of preset characteristics. 
  • Change the number style of the cells: It is used for number formatting in Excel, i.e., to change the cell numbers' appearance without actually modifying them.  
  • Change the date and time of the cells: It is used to change the way date and time is shown in the cells.
  • Change the scientific notation in the cells: Sometimes, the larger numbers are shown differently in cells, like 140,000 and 1.40E+05. To change this, you can change the scientific notation in cells.

Procedure to format the cells in MS Excel?

  1. Open a new excel sheet. 
  2. Click on the cell you want to format. If you want to select multiple cells at once, then you need to hold the Ctrl button and click on the cells you want to select with the help of your mouse by clicking on the desired cells.
  3. After that, you need to click on the Home tab on the ribbon and perform any type of formatting you want to do from the options provided there. You can even perform customized formatting by clicking on the Format option.

How to format cells in excel to fit text

How do you format cells in Excel to fit text? This can be done in two ways:

Method 1

Set a column to a specific width

  1. Choose the column(s) that you wish to change.
  2. On the Home tab, in the Cells group, you need to click on Format.
  3. Then under the Cell Size option, click on Column Width.
  4. After clicking on the Column width box, you can manually type out the value that you want the width to be. There is also another option that helps you to change the width of the column. Click on AutoFit Column Width if you want to. It will help you to fit your text in the cell without constantly changing it.
  5. After that, click on OK to confirm your command.

Method 2

By wrapping text inside a cell

Follow the steps and understand how to format cells in Excel to fit in the text automatically.

  1. First of all, you need to select all the cells that contain the entire dataset that you want to change. 
  2. Then you need to go to the Home tab and then from the Alignment Ribbon, click on the Wrap Text option.

Shortcut to format cells in Excel

This is a shortcut to format cells in Excel. Have a look at the process given below:

  1. Choose the cells which you wish to format.
  2. Then you need to press the keys that trigger the shortcut. They are Ctrl + 1. After pressing the shortcut keys, the Format Cells dialog box will appear.
  3. In the dialog box, make the changes that you want, and then click on OK.

How to format cells in google sheets?

To format cells in Google Sheets, you need to follow the following procedure:

  1. Open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
  2. Select the cell(s) you want to format. 
  3. Then look at the menu given above and choose the Format option from it.

To know more about the procedure, you can read how to format cells in Google Sheets. You can also check out this method of formatting Excel sheets in detail. You can also check out the number formats available in Excel. If you want to know how to format Google Spreadsheets, then you need to check out the link provided.    

About Foresight

In this blog, we have shared how to format cells in Microsoft Excel. But this is a cumbersome job, and it would have been better if there was any tool for automation. Luckily, we have Foresight software. It helps to manage multiple operations with Google Workspace Admin and adds automation to streamline the work. It has many other beneficial features, like importing or exporting different kinds of data on Google Workspace. You can also import or export active or suspended users list, bulk disable or bulk re-enable provisioned devices, import groups list as CSV, or import group members list as CSV. And most importantly, you don’t even have to write any automation code for it.