The alignment section of the Home Tab of the Excel 2007 ribbon is home to a number of options relating to the way in which your data is position within the cell. The most familiar and most frequently used icons in this section are the three relating to the horizontal position your data: left, centre and right. However you'll notice that when you activate the cells of an unformatted worksheet, none of the three alignment icons is highlighted. This indicates that none of them is the default. The reason for this is that Excel treats data alignment differently depending on the data type.
If you type text in a cell, your text is aligned on the left; if you type a number, the number is aligned on the right; if you type a date, it is also aligned on the right. To change the horizontal alignment, either select a range of cells or click on a column letter to highlight the entire column then click on one of the alignment icons.
Haven chosen one type of horizontal alignment, you can change it in two ways. You can either choose a different alignment or you can click again on the already selected alignment to deactivate it. For example, if your text is right-aligned and you click on the Right-align button a second time, this will deactivate right alignment and return you to the default alignment which, for text, is left-aligned. So, in fact, Excel has four types of horizontal alignment: left, centre, right and unspecified (or default), which is the alignment that applies when none of the alignment buttons is highlighted.
Excel also allows you to specify vertical alignment. This setting normally only becomes apparent when you increase the height of the cell and this time there is a definite default which is that text is aligned at the bottom of the cell. This setting applies to text, dates and numbers alike.
To change vertical alignment, either make a selection or click on the row number to select the entire row then click on one of the buttons to make the change: align middle, align top and so forth.
The alignment option also includes the ability to change the orientation of text within the cell. This is particularly useful in those situations where the headings are wider than the data within the cells. To change the vertical orientation of your text, you simply select the cells in question and then choose the appropriate orientation in the Alignment dialogue.
If you rotate your column headings by 90 degrees, you can usually make the columns much narrower. Excel has a very useful way of doing this: simply select all the columns that contain data then in the Cell group of the Home Tab of the Excel Ribbon, choose Format then AutoFit Columns. This command makes each of the highlighted columns no wider than it needs to be in order to display all the data it contains.
If you type text in a cell, your text is aligned on the left; if you type a number, the number is aligned on the right; if you type a date, it is also aligned on the right. To change the horizontal alignment, either select a range of cells or click on a column letter to highlight the entire column then click on one of the alignment icons.
Haven chosen one type of horizontal alignment, you can change it in two ways. You can either choose a different alignment or you can click again on the already selected alignment to deactivate it. For example, if your text is right-aligned and you click on the Right-align button a second time, this will deactivate right alignment and return you to the default alignment which, for text, is left-aligned. So, in fact, Excel has four types of horizontal alignment: left, centre, right and unspecified (or default), which is the alignment that applies when none of the alignment buttons is highlighted.
Excel also allows you to specify vertical alignment. This setting normally only becomes apparent when you increase the height of the cell and this time there is a definite default which is that text is aligned at the bottom of the cell. This setting applies to text, dates and numbers alike.
To change vertical alignment, either make a selection or click on the row number to select the entire row then click on one of the buttons to make the change: align middle, align top and so forth.
The alignment option also includes the ability to change the orientation of text within the cell. This is particularly useful in those situations where the headings are wider than the data within the cells. To change the vertical orientation of your text, you simply select the cells in question and then choose the appropriate orientation in the Alignment dialogue.
If you rotate your column headings by 90 degrees, you can usually make the columns much narrower. Excel has a very useful way of doing this: simply select all the columns that contain data then in the Cell group of the Home Tab of the Excel Ribbon, choose Format then AutoFit Columns. This command makes each of the highlighted columns no wider than it needs to be in order to display all the data it contains.
About the Author:
The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, a UK IT training company offering Microsoft Excel 2007 training courses at their central London training centre.
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