Formatting cells

In the Alignment tab, you can define the alignment of the text (horizontal or vertical), the indent size (if you have selected left alignment), text orientation and whether to wrap the text in the cell(s) or merge cells.

• If you select the Wrap Text checkbox, when a single line of text exceeds the width of its cell, the cell is widened until all the wrapped text fits within it.

• Select the Merge Cells checkbox to combine two or more selected cells into a single cell. This option can be used with horizontal alignment to create headings that are centred across a number of merged cells.

Be aware that if you merge two cells that both contain values, only the value in the upper left cell in the selection is used. The values are retained in all the cells involved, the cells are overlaid with the value in the upper left cell. If you deselect the Merge Cells checkbox, the values in the cells will re-display.

• The Orientation option enables you to set the angle at which text is to be set for the current cell(s) selection. To rotate clockwise, enter a positive value. To rotate anticlockwise, enter a negative value.

The Period Start and Period End drop-downs both contain the same list of values. To specify year to date values, the Period Start should be set to Period 1 and the Period End should be set to the Current Period. To specify periodic values, the Period Start and Period End values should be identical.

Specify if you want the figures to be Year to Date (therefore the start period is set to Period 1 and you cannot change it) or Movement based (therefore both the start and end periods are enabled).

You can also define whether the balance type is displayed in the selected cell(s). Different balance types are available from different General Ledger software.

The Border tab is where you can define the border. There are three presets available; none, outside or inside. Use the Line section to select a single line or a double line border. The drop-down Colour list enables you to choose a colour for the border.

You are also able to set your own border preference by using the Border section and selecting the sides that you want to have a border.

In the Category tab, you define the type of information to be entered in cells which have this style applied. You could therefore set up a style for each information type to be entered into a report. For example, you may want dates in a report to always be bold and italic, so you could create a style called Date and define these formatting requirements. You could then do the same for percentages and heading rows, etc.

The available category types are:

Additional formatting can be applied to Text without affecting the style of other types of information such as dates.

In the Font tab, you can select common Windows font definitions (font, size, bold, underline, certain effects and font colour) to apply to the selected style or cell(s).

The Pattern tab is used to define the pattern style and colour. You are also able to set the background colour.

The flexibility that Column Templates provide may require some restrictions for certain formats. You can apply protection to prevent others from changing the balance type, the year / period and the style.

Any cell that has some form of protection displays a padlock icon. This icon makes you aware of the protected cell as it affects or alters the behaviour of the cell when used with Column Templates.

If you are using the Format Cells window to apply the same formatting to cells on a number of occasions, it is recommended that you create the common formatting combination as a style in the Styles Editor window so that, in future, it can be applied in one step.

In the Text tab, select the type of format (e.g., uppercase or capital initial letters) to be applied to text entered in cells with this setting applied. Numerical entries or dates in such cells will be not be affected.