Well I am trying to do a list like this (I hope the aligning comes through)

Jack Thompson
Patrick Stewart
Tom Reallylonglastname
Longfirstname lastname

basically I want the long names to extend into the other columns. Your
method ends up like this. It's not a "bad" thing, it just isn't what I want
for this particular list.

Jack Thompson
Patrick Stewart
Tom Reallylonglastname
Longfirstname lastname


"Bernard Liengme" wrote:

Why not have first-name in A and second-name in B ?
You can hide the gridlines!
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Sloth" wrote in message
...
I am trying to align the first names to the left of the cell and the last
names to the right (don't ask me why). I know one way but it requires a
custom number format for each entry. Is the another method anyone here
can
suggest to get the same thing without using a custom number format.

Here's how I currently do it.
Say I want "Patrick Stewart" to look like this...
Patrick Stewart
I enter Patrick in the cell and then apply the following custom number
format..
@* "Stewart"
and align the cell to the left.
the "* " tells excel to enter as many spaces as it can to fill the cell.

This method works if I have one or two names in the list I want to do this
with, but it gets cumbersome after more than a handful.