We can take any Excel workbook and format it until Christmas, and we would still not be done. But not many of us have so much of time or energy. So, today, lets talk Excel formatting Tips.
1. Use tables to format data quickly
Excel Tables are an incredibly powerful way to handle a bunch of related data. Just select any cell with in the data and press CTRL+T and then Enter. And bingo, your data looks slick in no time. This has to be the best and easiest formatting tip.
Learn more about Excel Tables.
2. Change colors in a snap
So you have made a spreadsheet model or dashboard. And you want to change colors to something fresh. Just go to Page Layout ribbon and choose a color scheme from Colors box on top left. Microsoft has defined some great color schemes. These are well contrasted and look great on your screen. You can also define your own color schemes (to match corporate style). What more, you can even define schemes for fonts or combine both and create a new theme.
3. Use cell styles
Consistency is an important aspect of formatting. By using cell styles, you can ensure that all similar information in your workbook is formatted in the same way. For example, you can color all input cells in orange color, all notes in light gray etc.
To apply cell styles, just select all the cells you want to have same style and from Home ribbon, select the style you want (from styles area).
Learn how to use cell styles in Excel.
4. Use format painter
Format painter is a beautiful tool part of all Office programs. You can use this to copy formatting from one area to another. See below demo to understand how this works. You can locate format painter in the Home ribbon, top left.
5. Clear formats in a click
Sometimes, you just want to start with a clean slate. May be it is that colleague down the aisle who made an ugly mess of the quarterly budget spreadsheet. (Hey, its a good idea to tell him about Chandoo.org) So where would you start?
Simple, just select all the cells, and go to Home > Clear > Clear Formats. And you will have only values left, so that you can format everything the way you want.
6. Formatting keyboard shortcuts
Formatting is an everyday activity. We do it while writing an email, making a workbook, preparing a report, putting together a deck of slides or drawing something. Even as I am writing this post, I am formatting it. So knowing a couple of formatting shortcuts can improve your productivity. I use these almost every time I work in Excel.
- CTRL + 1: Opens format dialog for anything you have selected (cells, charts, drawing shapes etc.)
- CTRL + B, I, U: To Bold, Italicize or Underline any given text.
- ALT+Enter: While editing a cell, you can use this to add a new line. If you want a new line as part of formula outcome, use CHAR(10), and make sure you have enabled word-wrap.
- ALT+EST: Used to paste formats. Works like format painter (#4)
- CTRL+T: Applies table formatting to current region of cells
- CTRL+5: To
strike thru. - F4: Repeat last action. For example, you could apply bold formatting to a cell, select another and hit F4 to do the same.
More: Formatting shortcuts for keyboard junkies
7. Formatting options for print
What looks great on your screen might look messed up, if you do not set correct print options. That is why, make sure that you know how to use these print settings. All of these can be accessed from Page Layout ribbon. For more, you can also use print preview and then “page settings” button.
8. Do not go overboard
Formatting your workbook is much like garnishing your food. No amount of plating & garnishing is going to make your food taste good. I personally spend 80% of time making the spreadsheet and 20% of time formatting it. By learning how to use various formatting features in Excel & relying on productive ideas like tables, cell styles, format painter & keyboard shortcuts, you can save a lot of time. Time you can use to make better, more awesome spreadsheets.
10 Formatting Tricks only Excel experts would know
In addition to the above 8 formatting tips, I made a video explaining more tips. Watch it to learn 10 super cool, secret format tricks to take your spreadsheet game to next level.
- Merging without merging – centre across selection
- Merge multiple cells with “Merge across”
- No decimal points for large numbers with Custom cell formatting
- Showing numbers in Thousands or millions with Custom cell formatting
- New line in a cell with ALT+Enter
- Copy widths alone with paste special
- Skip zero in chart labels with custom cell formatting
- Align & distribute charts with alignment tools
- Show total hours with [h]:mm custom code
- Text format for very long numbers
What are your favorite Excel formatting tips?
Formatting (or making something look good) helps you get great first impression. I am always looking for ways to improve my formatting skills. While a great deal of formatting skill is art (and personal taste), there are several ground rules to follow as well. Applying ideas like consistency, alignment, simplicity and vibrancy goes a long way.
What formatting tips & ideas you follow? Please share them with us using comments.
Learn how to make better spreadsheets
- 10 tips to make spreadsheets that your boss will love
- 5 conditional formatting basics to master
- 12 Rules for making better spreadsheets
- More tips on formatting, conditional formatting, custom cell formatting & chart formatting
Join Excel School & Make awesome Excel sheets
In my Excel School program, we focus not just on teaching Excel, but also teaching you how to make awesome Excel workbooks. You can see how I format my data, charts, dashboards & reports and learn hundreds of tips on formatting.
Even the lesson workbooks are beautifully formatted & packed with fresh ideas for you to try.
Consider joining our Excel School program, because you want to be awesome in Excel.
28 Responses to “Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6]”
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Part 3: Preparing a project time line [upcoming] Part 4: Time sheets and Resource management [...]
the templates are great (I bought the combo).
What I'm missing is a way to have the project gantt chart and reporting with the data per resource, in such a way that I can also show the occupation per resource on an extended gantt chart.
So with hours entered per person per project or sub-activity, to show a gantt chart of how many hours/days a person spent on which project (or plans to spend).
[...] from: Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6] 25 Jun 09 | [...]
Hi Chandoo,
Funny I have a post on the value of MS project lined up which I will post when the current monster project I'm working on finishes and I get some free time!
I'm not sure this would help with any of the projects I've worked on, closing down a to do list seems like more effort than it's worth, but it might be useful for some things. I guessing it doesn't, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?
keep up the good work!
Ross
@Ross.. Thanks for sharing your ideas... I think to do lists are a great way to keep up with project activities and ensure accountability from individual team members, when they are implemented right.
"I guessing it doesn’t, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?"
Your guess is right. When you change the calculation mode to "iterative", excel takes care of the nittygritties and retains older values in circular references in formulas.
[...] Project Management in Excel [New Series] - Gantt Charts | To Do Lists [...]
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
Hi Chandoo,
The template give me lot of convenience to monitor the thing to do. It simple. Thank You
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
[...] make sure you have read the first 4 parts of the series - Making gantt charts [project planning], team todo lists [project tracking], project time lines chart [reporting] and Timesheets and Resource Management using Excel. Also [...]
Chandoo,
I really do not see any befit to this function in Excel unless it was somehow tied into some other chart. That is say a scheduled activities % complete is based on the to-do list.
The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless.
@Brian... Once you have a todo list up and running, it is easy to get metrics out of it. I didnt propose it as it might look a bit too micro-management-ish.
I am able to understand what you meant by "The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless."
Can you explain?
"Chandoo"
What I mean is this. Lets say you have 10 task which are part of one activity/WBS that is in your schedule. One there are very few cases were many people would be assigned to complete this one scheduled activity with no direction being given who should what of the 10 task. It is poor management, and the task 90% of the time would not get done in a timely manner if say 4 people were responsible. Secondly, you are assuming all 10 task are independent of each other. You might need to do task 1 thru 3 before you can do task 4, and to do task 7 you might need to do 4 and 6. Thirdly, the time it would take to compile and then fill out the to-do-list even in limited applications is really not worth it.
I just see almost no applications why a team would need to inform others separate from the schedule that they have completed a task on a to-do list unless anyone of the 4 people could of completed that task.
My point is, there might be a few very limited applications for this type of list but this list would be worthless as a Project Management tool in every other case.
However, change this from a to-do-list to a document change log and it is perfect. Instead of to-do it is the documents name or summary of what changed in the document. The person is who edited the document, and the time stamp is when they checked it in. But I do not know why you would use excel when there is free software you can use commercially that is 10 times better that does document management.
I think using excel to do Project Management over a real Project Management application is a bad idea. Unless you are running a very small, simple project, the time and effort is a lot more to use excel compared to the cost of the Project Management software.
This comes back to my point, I love your site, however, just because you can do something in excel does not mean you should do it. To often the time it takes to use excel is wasted 10 times over from the cost of doing it in an application designed to for the specific application.
@Brian: The todo list mentioned here is meant to keep track of all the tasks for which detailed planning is not necessary but some sort of tracking is needed. These are not be confused with project activities (a la gantt chart).
I like your suggestion about using this as a document tracker. Pretty cool use.
Coming to your point about excel as a real project management tool, well, I have my views, but in a serious project environment, it would surely payoff to have a dedicated project management application.
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Time sheets and Resource [...]
Chandoo,
Wonder how the timestamp column will maintain its previous data. Both Today() and Now() functions will update as and when the next timestamp happens.
[...] Preparing & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Part2: Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Part3: Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Part4: Time sheets and [...]
I've combined this with the issue tracker since I like the automatic date stamp, but one thing I'm noticing is that I can't replicate the chart that goes along with the issue tracker because the cells that are referenced have the formula that inserts the time stamp instead of a the actual date value. All the dates of the last 30 days display 0 when they should have a value.
Is there a way around this?
I have edited the chart so that my team members can update the percentage completion of the assigned tasks. When the cell is updated, i would like the time stamp to update. How would I manipulate the formula to update whenever the drop-down list is changed?
[...] … ??? To Do List [...]
Excel is great however sometimes you need to get a better idea of what tasks each person on your team is working on at any given time. We've developed a web app that can do just that! Each person has a list of tasks, listed in the order they have to complete them.
HII,
I want to expand the database through excel where i am working on 11 cities as of now and i want to expand it upto 50 cities and hence forth the data related to it will also expand so i want to make it precise where i can get updates also that this work is required to be done at that particular day or date
Thanks for making all of this information available for free. I am currently using excel to track everything for the first time. I later plan to output our information here with a more visual presentation. Wish me luck!
Can some one point me out to some additional direction on the "Who Finished it?" column? Something more 'basic' for a newbie excel guy? lol I got everything else working on this tutorial but that column. I can't seem to recreate it and I know a lot of it is due to lack of knowledge with VB code. I'd like to recreate this column very much 🙁
Dear Chandoo,
Thanks for the team to do list, kindly let me know how to set the column who " finished it " from another work sheet
Hi Chandoo,
Unable to download it - can you please check the link and confirm.
Great inhisgt! That's the answer we've been looking for.
Hi Team,
I know u all are the best programmers in the world!!! that's I am here to rectify my issues. here is my question please ans me as soon as possible before 8-3-2017 its really urgent.
I have a project named the production tracker.
1) I require the user form which shows the names of the Associates which are linked to the different tracks. when the user is selected the particular track related details and dropdowns should appear.
2) I need to track the associate needs how much of the time to complete the particular task. with start stop and pause and resume timer.
3) It should display the daily count of the production and save the data to the another Excel file.
this production tracker should save all the data no matter how many people logs in into it.
Please help me for this it will be very appreciated.
you can directly email me on my mail ID: tusharkch694@gmail.com