aligning small #s in wide columns
 

FYI - Just something I found interesting and hadn't seen discussed.

I see lots of spreadsheets where users insert empty columns to help align
small numbers under a wide column heading. To avoid that I used to do use a
custom number format that used a "_W_W" placeholder at the end to push the
numbers left in the column

An alternative is to use a General or Number numeric format combined with
right aligning the number - then indenting the number as any times as needed.
Each indent moves the number farther to the left. I've thrown an extra
'RtAlign' style incorprating this technique into Book.xlt to make it faster
to use.

There's an option under
Format|Cells|Alignment tab
You could change the indent spinner to bigger than 0 and make it
"right (indent)"

It looks like that has a similar effect.

Duke Carey wrote:

FYI - Just something I found interesting and hadn't seen discussed.

I see lots of spreadsheets where users insert empty columns to help align
small numbers under a wide column heading. To avoid that I used to do use a
custom number format that used a "_W_W" placeholder at the end to push the
numbers left in the column

An alternative is to use a General or Number numeric format combined with
right aligning the number - then indenting the number as any times as needed.
Each indent moves the number farther to the left. I've thrown an extra
'RtAlign' style incorprating this technique into Book.xlt to make it faster
to use.

--

Dave Peterson