So let’s turn more directly to the buttons in the Font Group in the Home tab. If you want to change the operative font in a cell, a range of cells, or the entire worksheet for that matter, you need to carry out what’s called the select-then-do routine, a technique that really applies to any formatting change you wish to introduce anywhere. Very simply, select-then-do means you select those cells in which you want to implement the change, and then make the change.
Thus to change the font to, say, Chiller:
• Select the cells you want to change.
• If necessary, click on the Home tab, and then click on the down arrow alongside the Font box in the Font group (Figure 4–3):
Figure 4–3. Your system’s fonts, listed and previewed
• Click on the font you wish—in this case Chiller.
Note that the cells you’ve selected need not be currently populated with data. They can be blank, and so we see that formatting changes can be instituted prospectively or retroactively. You can format first, and enter data later—or vice versa.
Note in addition that after you complete your change the cells you’ve selected remain selected—
because Excel wants you to be able to ascribe additional changes to the cell if you wish. Thus if I want to immediately follow the font change with a change in font size, I just click the down arrow alongside the Font Box, and click a size selection (Figure 4–4):
Figure 4–4. The Font Size drop-down menu
And information about these kinds of changes is cell-sensitive, meaning that the formatting characteristics of any cell you click are conveyed in the boxes and buttons in the ribbon. Thus if I click cell B7 on this worksheet I’ll see (Figure 4–5):
Figure 4–5. Not a thing of beauty, but here’s text in Showcard Gothic 26-point type, with boldface and italics added
I can immediately learn that the cell is set in a 26-point Showcard Gothic font, and is boldfaced and italicized besides (note the highlighted B and U). If I select a range of cells, it’s the one in white—
that is, the current cell—whose formatting info will appear on the ribbon.
If you’re a Word user, these commands should be familiar to you—although in that application one changes fonts and font sizes of words and characters. Here the basic unit of currency is characters in cells.
Now note that the size intervals enumerated in the above menu leave gaps—there’s no 17-point option there, for example. And so if you do need 17, 23, or 29-point characters, click in the Font Size box itself (Figure 4–6):
Figure 4–6. Click here in order to enter an unlisted font size
Type the desired size, and press Enter. Your font size is thereby changed. You can even shave your sizes in half-point increments, by typing 17.5, for instance.
To the immediate right of these boxes you’ll see two disparately-sized A’s. Click the larger of the two and your font enlarges by the next available interval in the Font Size drop-down menu—for the cell(s) you’ve selected. That means, for example, that if my selected cell has data in it set at 14 points, clicking the large A lifts its character size to 16—the next size interval you’ll find in the Font Size drop-down menu. And if you’ve selected a range of cells with different current sizes—say some cells exhibit 12 points, and others 14—then all the font-changing methods work with the cell you’ve actively selected—that is, the cell in white—and will modulate the size of all the other cells to exactly match the font size of just the selected cell. For example, if I’ve selected this range (Figure 4–7):
Figure 4–7. All these cells will match the font size of the white cell when they’re changed collectively.
Clicking the large A will then treat the 23 as the starting font size, and resize all the cells as per whatever size you select for the 23. And, needless to say, clicking the smaller of the two A’s does all of the above—in reverse, reducing font size with successive clicks. Thus the two A buttons really present you with a slightly swifter way of doing what the Font Size box does.
You’ll also note the three formatting classics just beneath the font boxes—Bold, Italics, and Underline—B, I, and U—all of which submit to the same select-then-do technique. They also boast three classic keyboard equivalents—Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, and Ctrl-U, respectively. Note in addition, however, the drop-down arrow accompanying the Underline button. Click it and you’ll see this little drop-down menu (Figure 4–8):
Figure 4–8. Two text underlining options
Click Underline and you’ll wind up merely selecting the same single-underline option that was in force before you clicked the drop-down arrow. Select Double Underline, however, and you’ll naturally inscribe a pair of lines beneath the characters in the cells you’ve selected (and not the entire cell width; this is the case with any underline). But this simple sequence illustrates a larger point: if you click Double Underline, you’ll see this change in the Underline button (Figure 4–9):
Figure 4–9. The Double Underline selection
That is, Excel remembers the last selection you made with that button—at least for the duration of your session. Close Excel and the button reverts to its default appearance—in this case, the standard single underline. This last-selection-remembered feature applies to many formatting buttons, as you’ll see. Note that the B, I, and U commands are toggles—that is, they have an alternating, on-off character. Click I, and your text is italicized. Click the I again, and the text is returned to its normal angle. The same idea applies to alternating clicks of Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, and Ctrl-U—they turn the respective effects on and off.
And if you click the Dialog Box launcher in this group, you’ll wind up here (Figure 4–10):
Figure 4–10. The Font tab in the Format Cells dialog box
You’ll discover a couple of other underline options when you click the down arrow beneath Underline.
And if you want to see what Strikethrough, Superscript, and Subscript do, just select a cell(s) with data, turn on the above dialog box, click the commands, and observe what happens in the preview pane.
Strikethrough draws a line through the selected data in their cells, Superscript raises it (as per the 2 in E=MC2), and Subscript sinks the data in a cell, as with the 2 in CO2.