EXCEL

Adding Borders and Shading

To add a border to a cell, click on the cell and then click on the Format drop-down menu and choose Cell.  Click on the Border tab of the window that appears and you will see the options shown below.

Choose the type of line and the line colour on the right hand side of the window and then select the edges you want to apply the border to in the diagram on the left.  The Preset borders, Outline and Inside can be used to quickly apply an external box border or internal gridlines.  The None button will remove an existing border completely.

As well as using the Borders window (which provides far more flexibility), you can also quickly apply a border to a cell using the Borders icon from the Formatting toolbar at the top of your Excel screen. When you click the black arrow to the right of the icon you will see a selection of bordering options:

No Border	Bottom Border	Left Border	Right Border
Double Bottom Border	Thick Bottom Border	Top and Bottom Border	Top and Double Bottom Border
Top and Thick Bottom Border	All Borders	Outside Border	Thick Box Border

To apply shading, click on the Patterns tab in the Format Cells window shown below and choose a colour and/or a pattern from the selectors shown. When you click the drop-down arrow by the Pattern box you can choose both a type of pattern and a colour for the lines of that pattern, the colours on the main Patterns window set the background colour.

The Fill Colour icon  on the Formatting toolbar can also be used to quickly apply a single colour background to cells.

If you click on the Format drop-down menu and choose AutoFormat you can quickly apply a standard format to your worksheet, the AutoFormat window is shown below.

If you click the Options button you can choose whether you apply the whole format or just certain aspects of it.

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