Technology Tips Archive: Excel

• Easily Center Data on a Printed Page
• Printing the Gridlines
• Sorting Data
• The Select All Button
• Use AutoFill to Quickly Copy Formulas and Formatting in Excel
• Using Line Breaks Within Cells

Easily Center Data on a Printed Page
When you print a worksheet, you may feel that the printout would look better if the data were centered on the page. If so, you don't have to insert a lot of extra rows and columns or change the individual page margins to get the data to print where you want it.

1. Choose Page Setup from the File menu
2. Click on the Margins tab
3. Now use the check boxes at the bottom of the dialog box to Center On Page horizontally and/or vertically

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Printing the Gridlines
Have you ever printed an Excel worksheet? Did you notice that the gridlines that you see on the screen don't print? Well there is a way to print them if you so desire.

1. Choose Page Setup from the File menu
2. Click on the Sheet tab
3. Check the box next to Gridlines in the Print section near the center of the dialog box
4. Click OK

That's it, now when you print the gridlines will print too. One item of note, this only applies to the file you are working on and not every Excel file.

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From A to Z: Sorting Data
If you've ever had a spreadsheet of data you have probably encountered situations where you would like to sort that data using various columns within it. To order data in an Excel spreadsheet:

1. Select a cell in the column you would like to sort the data by
2. Click the Data menu and select Sort...
3. Click Ascending (A to Z or 1 to n) or Descending (Z to A or n to 1)
4. Click OK

You can change the criteria Excel sorts by, sort by a second column, and even undo your sort if you like.

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The Magic Select All Button
Let's say you want to make a change to the entire Excel worksheet (for example changing the font face or size). There has to be an easy way to select everything right? Well, there is! To the left of the gray column A heading and above the gray row 1 heading is the select all button (circled in the picture below). Just click on it and you've selected everything on the worksheet.

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Use AutoFill to Quickly Copy Formulas and Formatting in Excel
Would you like an easy way to extend a series of numbers in Microsoft Excel without typing each one individually? With AutoFill, you can quickly copy data, formulas, or formatting to adjacent cells. Here's how:

1. Select the cell that you would like to copy
2. Move the cursor to the bottom right corner of the highlighted cells (your cursor will then turn into a black plus sign as seen at the right)
3. Click and hold down the right mouse button and drag across the cells you want to fill [on the Mac press and hold the Command button (the apple button) and click and drag]
4. Release the mouse button and when the shortcut menu appears, click Fill Series

You can use this feature to AutoFill numbers, dates, months, days of the week and even formulas.

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Using Line Breaks Within Cells
Every so often the need may arise to use a line break (or hard return if you will) within an Excel cell.  You may have even tried this only to discover that when you hit the enter/return key you simply move to the next cell.  The trick on the PC is the hold the Alt key and then hit Enter.  On the Mac, hold the Option key and Command (the apple key) and then hit Return.

To see what happens, try this little example:

1. Open Excel and in one of the cells type your first name
2. Add a line break within the cell
   • on the PC hold the Alt key and hit Enter
   • on the Mac hold option and command and hit Return
3. Type your last name
4. Hit Enter/Return

You will notice that the contents of the cell are on two different lines, regards of how wide the cell is.

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