Blogs from Wise Owl on Formatting in Excel

How to confuse other Excel users by changing your cell styles

Posted by Andy Brown on 14 August 2019

Want to make a worksheet inexplicably change colour, and display strange text in cells? This blog explains how you can do this using the Normal style.

Using Styles in Microsoft Excel

Posted by Andrew Gould on 24 February 2012

Constantly formatting cells in the same way can be one of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks in Excel. This blog teaches you how to use styles so that you can quickly apply consistent formatting across a range of cells.

How To Create Custom Date Formats in Microsoft Excel

Posted by Andrew Gould on 31 October 2011

When you enter dates into cells in Microsoft Excel you're initially limited to a short list of fairly boring formats. Using custom date formats means that you can display your dates in almost any way you like!

Using Icon Sets for conditional formatting in Microsoft Excel

Posted by Michael Allsop on 19 October 2011

This article looks at one of the new features in Conditional Formatting in Excel which we can use to make our boring lists more interesting!

Conditional formatting with Data Bars in Microsoft Excel

Posted by Michael Allsop on 19 October 2011

Following on from the article discussing simple conditional formatting in Excel, this blog shows you how to add Data Bars to your lists for that extra bit of pazazz!

How to apply Conditional Formatting in Microsoft Excel

Posted by Michael Allsop on 19 October 2011

This short article looks at the basic settings for creating conditional formatting rules in Excel.

Using Fractions in Microsoft Excel

Posted by Andrew Gould on 03 October 2011

If you've ever tried to enter fractions in Microsoft Excel you'll probably have become frustrated when Excel insists on converting them into dates! Read this blog to see how to prevent this from happening.

Choosing Colours In Microsoft Office Applications

Posted by Andrew Gould on 19 September 2011

Have you ever been asked to reproduce your company's brand colours in your latest PowerPoint presentation, or wanted to use your corporate font colours in your latest Word report? This blog will show you how to pick your colours accurately in any of the standard Microsoft Office applications.