Let me set up this topic with a true story. My wife wanted to print some forms to distribute to her staff. The forms were a giant table with names of students down the left side and content headings for columns. The intent was to create a one-page checksheet that would let an X be placed in the cell beside the name of the student who completed the curriculum content of the column heading. The form she had in mind looked like this:
Name |
Content 1 |
Content 2 |
Content 3 |
Content 4 |
| Jim | x |
x |
||
| John | x |
x |
||
| Joe | x |
x |
||
| Sam | x |
|||
| Pete | x |
x |
x |
|
| Sue | x |
x |
||
| Fred | x |
The width of the columns need only be wide enough to place a mark. However, the column heading had to be wide enough to read the curriculum content. She was only able to get a few items on each page since a typical heading might be:
"Multiplies two 2-digit Numbers"
You can imagine how many columns she got on a page with columns wide enough to display this column heading! Follow along as I solved her problem.
This was the shape I found the Excel document. There was a place for names, and columns that were extremely wide for placing a checkmark. If you tried adjusting the column widths down, the column heading couldn't be read.
Remembering that this was Excel, I selected all of the cells containing Curriculum Topics. The format feature should be applied to all selected cells.
With these cells selected, I chose Format + Cells from the Menu.
When the Format Cells wizard appeared, I selected the Alignment Tab. I quickly found the Orientation of the Text's red button.
I drug this button to the top. When this was completed, I clicked OK.
Instantly I viewed the selected cells with the text aligned vertically. Unfortunately, the widths of the columns needed adjusting.
I selected the columns containing the Curriculum Topics and adjusted the column widths to a reasonable size.
The staff had room to make a checkmark and each of the column headings could be easily read. There was plenty of room for more Curriculum Topics. Of course these would have to be added and aligned vertically. I was a hero!
(To extend the marriage warranty, husbands need to climb high mountains, swim deep rivers, or solve office problems ... thank you Excel... This trick added on at least 2 years!)
In summary, remember that the cell contents may be displayed at any angle with the Text Orientation arrow in the Alignment Tab wizard. You should use this feature when you don't need wide columns, but you need many columns to appear on a single page. Experiment with dragging the orientation different levels to feel the control you actually have over the final results.
Return | See a Movie of the Process