You can use charts, colors, borders, and other design options to enhance the appearance of your worksheets and increase their legibility.
In this chapter, you will learn everything about designing appealing worksheets. It covers the following topics:
▪Cell size
| To change the cell size, use the commands of the ribbon tab Layout | group Cells. Alternatively, simply drag the row header (or column header) using the mouse. |
▪Number format
| PlanMaker can display numbers in many different number formats: from simple numbers with or without decimal places via currency, percentage and date formats to freely definable formats. Use the commands of the ribbon tab Home | group Number to select the appropriate number format. |
▪Borders
| You can use the ribbon command Home | group Format | Borders to add a border or individual lines to cells. |
▪Shading
| The background of cells can be shaded. The ribbon command Home | group Format | Shading lets you apply a variety of colors, shading and patterns to the background of cells. |
▪Alignment
| You can use the commands of the ribbon tab Home | group Alignment to align cell contents (left-aligned, right-aligned, etc.) and rotate them. |
▪Protection
| Furthermore, you can use the dialog box of the ribbon tab Home | group Alignment (Protection tab) to protect cells so that they cannot be overwritten or changed, for example. For more information, see also Sheet protection. |
▪Character format
| The commands of the ribbon tab Home | group Character let you specify the character format of cells or individual characters. This includes settings such as the font, font styles (bold, italics, etc.) and the font color. |
▪Paragraph format (text frames only)
| If you have inserted text frames into the worksheet, you can change the paragraph formatting (line spacing, indents, etc.) of the included text at any time. This can be done using the dialog box Paragraph of the ribbon tab Home | group Alignment (only available in text frames). |
▪Character styles
| Character formats that you use very frequently can be stored in a character style, which can then be applied as often as you like. |
▪Cell styles
FreeOffice: Creating and managing your own cell styles is not included in SoftMaker FreeOffice.
| You can also create cell styles. Both the character format (font, font size, etc.) and the cell format (number format, borders, shading, alignment and cell protection) can be saved in these cell styles. |
▪Document templates
| PlanMaker even lets you create your own document templates. Document templates can include your own character styles, your own cell styles and any kind of content. |
▪AutoFormat
| The command AutoFormat enables you to format a range of cells by applying predefined formats. |
| Note: The command Insert | Table is even more powerful for applying different table styles. For more information, see Tables in worksheets. |
▪Conditional formatting
| You can also apply conditional formatting to cells. This will only be applied if a certain condition is met. Thus, for example, you can specify that a cell should be colored red whenever it contains a value greater than 1000. |
▪Input validation
FreeOffice: Input validation is not included in SoftMaker FreeOffice.
| When you add input validation to cells, only the specified types of values (for example, only numbers) within the specified limits (for example, only values between 10 and 20) will be considered valid in these cells. |
▪Format painter
| With the ribbon command Home | group Edit | Format painter, you can quickly transfer the formatting of one cell to other cells using a "brush". |
▪Page setup
| The page setup command allows the user to determine the appearance of the document when it is printed. It includes settings such as paper size, page margins, headers and footers, and much more. Use the ribbon command File | group Print | Page setup to change these settings. |
For more information on these topics in the above order, see the following pages.