Excel and inserting text.....

[skinnylegs]

Sorry if I don't have this in the right section......

I am creating a schedule using the Mac version of Excel. I would like to place "EASTER" in the blank section between the list of names but I want it to run perpendicular to the names. I suppose it would be a banner of sorts. How do I do this?

 

[exegete77]

Howdy.

For Excel 2004 for one cell: Select the cell, then hit CMD + 1 (Format Cells). On the second tab (Alignment), on the right side change the direction from 0 to 90, or click the clock and move the little hand to the vertical position).

Excel 2008 might be slightly different.

Or if you want it to span several cells, then merge the cells you want first, then change the vertical direction (which you can do also in the Alignment tab)

 

[skinnylegs]

Thank you so much! It worked like a charm!

 

[exegete77]

Glad it worked.

Keep in mind that "merged cells" can look nice in this kind of of setup, but they do interfere with several Excel capabilities.

As an analyst for a Fortune 50 company, who now trains many others. My first word of advice is "do NOT merge cells!" because of the problems it can cause. I even use VBA code to go through every cell in the worksheet to un-merge cells.

 

[skinnylegs]

Keep in mind that "merged cells" can look nice in this kind of of setup, but they do interfere with several Excel capabilities.

What capabilities do merged cells interfere with?

 

[exegete77]

Try to select just a few rows of your worksheet, to adjust the height or color.

Try to sort the rows.

Try to use Filters on the rows.

....


That's just off the top of my head.

 

[Doctor Q]

That glitch in the Excel design is especially annoying because once upon a time Excel let a text value span a number of columns as a type of cell justification, instead of requiring that you merge the cells to do this. So you used to be able use multi-column headings without losing the ability to select one column at a time and make changes to it.

 

[oif3bill]

3 More Excel Questions:

1. Hey guys, was reading the thread because I am looking for an answer. I am working on my company's performance assessment. I need to expand the form to fill out a full 8.5" x 11" sheet with margin. Currently it is at 6.5" by 10". One way to do this is to merge the rows til they meet the margin, but this is very tedious. Is there a quick way to merge multiple rows WITHOUT losing the text? I need to keep the row height and text data within... know what I mean?

2. I have a BRAND NEW MBP with Office for Mac 2008: My MBP has 4GB Ram and 150GB hard drive. Every so often, when performing a simple function like delete, I get a "Not enough memory" error. It repeats for 10-15 times then finally goes away. I highly doubt it is a problem with my mac. Advice?

3. Same Mac: While working with Excel 2008, the screen sometimes pulses low to bright.. even while plugged in. Weird. Anyone know what this could be and how to stop it? I really think this is a problem with MS Office for Mac.

Thanks very much for any help!

 

[oif3bill]

Pic of above

Figured I'd include a pic to demonstrate what I am trying to do. I need to expand the entire form to cells N & O (represented by the box). There are many rows as you can see and one by one it will be very tedious. Any ideas?

Thanks!

BTW: I have a MBP 2.4Ghz IC2Duo, 4GB Ram (667Mhz DDR2 SDRAM), 150GB HD, GeForce 8600M GT

 

[wordmunger]

1. Hey guys, was reading the thread because I am looking for an answer. I am working on my company's performance assessment. I need to expand the form to fill out a full 8.5" x 11" sheet with margin. Currently it is at 6.5" by 10". One way to do this is to merge the rows til they meet the margin, but this is very tedious. Is there a quick way to merge multiple rows WITHOUT losing the text? I need to keep the row height and text data within... know what I mean?

What do you mean? You just want to make the cells with the descriptive text wider?

You can change the width of any row or column by dragging the line between the cells (e.g. drag the line between "c" and "d" to the right until the column is the width you want).

 

[oif3bill]

What do you mean? You just want to make the cells with the descriptive text wider?

You can change the width of any row or column by dragging the line between the cells (e.g. drag the line between "c" and "d" to the right until the column is the width you want).

WM--I know you can drag one cell at a time or merge a cell with another. My question, more specifically: is there a way to merge several cells at a time? In my case, if I drag all the cells at a time, it'll distort the rest of the rows above the one I want to expand. Make sense?

Looking at my picture in the above post, you'll see the form I am creating. The area near cells "N & O" is what I need to expand the cells to. There is about 1/4" til the edge of the margin, which will just about be perfect.

I am an extreme novice so any assistance is greatly appreciated. Hope this wasn't to confusing.

BTW-- I am using Excel for Mac 2008.

Cheers