As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 79,000 lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you succeed.
Try it risk-freeAlready registered? Log in here for access
Karen has a Bachelors in Communications. She has 25 years of experience in Information Systems, Adult Learning and Virtual Training.
There are two ways to apply a style to a cell or a range of cells. You can choose your fonts, colors and shading manually, or you can use Excel's existing styles. A style is a set of formatting options already created and ready for you to apply to a cell or range of cells. Cell styles are a quick and an easy way to give your worksheet a more appealing and organized look, such as applying a style to headers and titles.
This lesson will review the steps to adding predesigned cell styles to your worksheets and guide you through the steps to changing the style once it has been applied.
Imagine you just spent hours creating an Excel workbook for your boss. The entire workbook is the revenue results for the year, detailed by each region. Each regional director sent you their results for quarter 1 and 2, and you have combined each spreadsheet into one workbook.
We have four regions, one worksheet per region. As you review the workbook, you notice that each worksheet is a little different. There are different fonts, font colors and shading for the titles, headers, input and totals. Before you present the document to your boss, you want to make sure that all elements of the different worksheets are the same and consistent. This is where cell styles can come to your rescue.
You could go into each worksheet and manually change the look of each type of content, or you could just apply the same style for each element of the worksheet.
 |
In the lesson video, I have our workbook. Notice each worksheet looks a little bit different because there is no consistency in the formatting of the information. Let's start with making sure our header row (or column titles) are the same for each region. In this case, we will begin with the first region or worksheet, apply a style, then apply that same style to the other three regions.
Now we can apply that same style to each worksheet and use this same process to apply consistent styles to each element or data type. This eliminates the need to manually select the font type, color and size, along with the shading, for each range of cells in a worksheet.
 |
Take a moment to notice that the Cell Styles command presents many different types to choose from, such as Normal, Bad, Good and Neutral. In addition, the styles are categorized into different types of data, for instance Data and Model.
Let's continue and apply a style to the body of the actual sellers and their revenue results. We can follow the same steps, but in our case we will go to the Data and Model section of the Cell Styles and select the Input option. Notice how this option also added the lines or borders. Now we can apply that same style to the other worksheets.
Using the styles really makes it easy to quickly apply consistent formatting to your worksheets.
If we take a look at the Cell Style options, you will notice that there are several Themed Cell Styles using accents and percentages of shading with different colors - sometimes referred to as the variance of the background color. This allows you to modify the cell style that you selected, such as our choice to use Input for the seller revenue numbers. Personally, the pinkish background or shading is not my favorite. I tend to stick with blues and greens. By selecting any of the theme choices, we can keep the same type of formatting and just change the colors. In this case, we will choose Accent 5 at 20% shading.
 |
You can see in the lesson video that I have gone ahead and applied styles to each element of the worksheet. Notice how each worksheet is consistent, uniform, it's easier to read, looks more organized and more professional than when we started. I think the boss will be happy!
Using cell styles is an easy and quick way to change the look of a cell or a range of cells. Excel has several predesigned styles to choose from, and they can help you create a well-organized, professional-looking spreadsheet.
You learned in this lesson how to apply styles and modify styles using accents. Cell styles may take a bit of practice, but with a little patience, you will be creating stellar spreadsheets that stand out above the rest.
After this Excel lesson, you should aim to:
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Already a member? Log In
BackAlready registered? Log in here for access
Did you know… We have over 200 college courses that prepare you to earn credit by exam that is accepted by over 1,500 colleges and universities. You can test out of the first two years of college and save thousands off your degree. Anyone can earn credit-by-exam regardless of age or education level.
To learn more, visit our Earning Credit Page
Not sure what college you want to attend yet? Study.com has thousands of articles about every imaginable degree, area of study and career path that can help you find the school that's right for you.
Back To Course
Intro to Excel: Essential Training & Tutorials15 chapters | 70 lessons
{{courseNav.course.topics.length}} chapters | {{courseNav.course.mDynamicIntFields.lessonCount}} lessons | {{course.flashcardSetCount}} flashcard set{{course.flashcardSetCoun > 1 ? 's' : ''}}
Next Lesson
Your Cart is Empty. Please Choose a Product.
Watch 5 minute video clips, get step by step explanations, take practice quizzes and tests to master any topic.
Study.com has a library of 550,000 questions and answers for covering your toughest textbook problems
I love the way expert tutors clearly explains the answers to my homework questions. Keep up the good work!
- Maritess, College StudentStudy.com video lessons have helped over 30 million students.
"I learned more in 10 minutes than 1 month of chemistry classes"
- Ashlee P.
"I learned more in 10 minutes than 1 month of chemistry classes"
- Ashlee P.
"I aced the CLEP exam and earned 3 college credits!"
- Clair S.
Over 65 million users have prepared for {{displayNameByProductKey[registrationData.product || testPrepCocoon]}} and other exams on Study.com
"The videos have changed the way I teach! The videos on Study.com accomplish in 5 minutes what would take me an entire class."
- Chris F.
Over 65 million users have prepared for {{displayNameByProductKey[registrationData.product || testPrepCocoon]}} and other exams on Study.com
Over 65 million users have prepared for {{displayNameByProductKey[registrationData.product || testPrepCocoon]}} and other exams on Study.com
