Microsoft Office

Essential Worksheet Operations 4
TIP
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Choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ AutoFit Column Width to adjust the width of the selected
column so that the widest entry in the column fits. Rather than selecting an entire column, you
can just select cells in the column, and the column is adjusted based on the widest entry in your
selection.
Double-click the right border of a column header to set the column width automatically to the
widest entry in the column.
To change the default width of all columns, choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Column ➪
Default Width. This command displays a dialog box into which you enter the new default column
width. All columns that haven’t been previously adjusted take on the new column width.
CAUTION
After you manually adjust a column’s width, Excel will no longer automatically adjust the column
to accommodate longer numerical entries.
Changing row heights
Row height is measured in points (a standard unit of measurement in the printing trade — 72 points is
equal to 1 inch). The default row height using the default font is 15 points, or 20 pixels.
The default row height can vary, depending on the font defined in the Normal style. In addition, Excel automatically
adjusts row heights to accommodate the tallest font in the row. So, if you change the font size of a
cell to 20 points, for example, Excel makes the column taller so that the entire text is visible.
You can set the row height manually, however, by using any of the following techniques. As with columns,
you can select multiple rows.
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Drag the lower row border with the mouse until the row is the desired height.
Choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Row Height and enter a value (in points) in the Row Height
dialog box.
n Double-click the bottom border of a row to set the row height automatically to the tallest entry in
the row. You also can choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Autofit Row Height for this task.
Changing the row height is useful for spacing out rows and is almost always preferable to inserting empty
rows between lines of data.
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