It is somewhat rare to need to format all of the cells in a row or column in a particular way. The more common need is to format a portion of a row or column. You may need to format a collection or block of cells...say a 5 x 6 block of cells. Just as in the discussion about selecting the target row or column, you should first select the target block of cells. This is accomplished by visualizing the block as a rectangle. Click the mouse in one corner of the "rectangle" or block and drag to the diagonally opposite corner. You may find it easier to drag down and across rather than make a diagonal swipe with the mouse.
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This example shows an initial click in the top corner and two dragging paths (red and black) to the bottom right corner. Either method will select the 7 x 3 block of cells. |
Once the target block is selected, you may apply the particular format feature. All cells in the selected block will be formated with the same format feature. This could be a cell alignment feature, a cell background color feature, a particular place value for numbers feature, etc. You can format each of the cells one at a time, but if each of the cells should be formatted identically, why not select the block first?