4. Sheets: Continue Formatting and Organizing — Freeze Cells, Columns, and Rows, Add Borders, Set Fill Color, Add Borders, and Change Fonts and Sizes

In the previous video, you began changing the format of your spreadsheet so it would be better organized, more visually appealing, and easier for you to use and share.

In this video, you will continue making formatting and organizational changes.

You will: Add a new column, Freeze your new column, Assign each row a Sale I-D number, And add borders.

To begin, assign each sales transaction an identification -- or I-D -- number. This helps you organize the purchases. Two people placing an order might have the same name, or two transactions could be so similar that it’s difficult to tell them apart. Sale I-D numbers separate each order clearly. To do this, insert a new column to the left of your first column.

Freeze your column. Freezing rows and columns keeps them from moving when you scroll through your sheet, making it easier to line up your data with the correct heading as you scroll.

Now, label the first row for a header. Then, make the first purchase number “one.”

You could type the number for each sale I-D by hand, but this would take a long time and may not be possible for spreadsheets with hundreds or thousands of data entries.

Instead, drag the handle to populate each cell with the numbers.

Oops! Instead of filling in the numbers sequentially, the last number was copied to each row.

To automatically fill in “sequential” numbers, select each of the cells you typed the sale I-D into. In this case, it’s one, two, and three.

And drag the handle. Nice work! Selecting several numbers in the sheet demonstrated the pattern you want to follow.

Next, divide your spreadsheet into a grid so that it’s easier to tell which information belongs to which product. To do this, add borders between columns.

Choose a border style.

And add borders around your headers. To make the headers more eye-catching, add fill colors. Next, change the borders in the first row so the cells are clear. Merge the cells to create another header.

Type a title for your sheet... add formatting...

And change the font style, if you’d like. To make your spreadsheet a more manageable size, adjust the column widths. Select all the columns in your sheet...

And resize them to fit the data. Then, delete the columns you’re not using.

Limiting the number of columns reduces the need to scroll through your sheet.

Nice work! Your spreadsheet is now clear and easy to read. But, if you’re planning to share with others on your team or within your organization, you might want to make it even easier to update and analyze. Move on to the next video to add data validation to your spreadsheet. Now, it’s your turn: Insert a column Freeze the column, Number the rows by dragging to populate the cells, Add borders, Resize the columns to fit the data, And delete columns you’re not using.