Cell Padding / Increasing Blank Space

[ajones]

In Excel 2010 is there a way to increase the blank space above, below, left and right of the data (text or numbers) in a cell.

We have some here that like to make things pretty by adding a small row or column in between every used line.

I don't like the extra blank lines as it makes some formulas tricky and navigating the cells can be harder.

I would love to have a way so that there always was x amount of blank space above and to the left or right of every cell.

Some sort of way to increase padding around the data.


any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.


thanks

Alan

 

[Joe4]

How about increasing the row/column sizes, and using the Center options?

I suppose if you wanted to make it real slick, you could use this concept with VBA code to make it automatically adjust upon data entry based on the largest entry in that particular column.

 

[Scott Huish]

For rows, increase row height and set Vertical Alignment to Center.
For columns, increase column width and set Horizontal Alignment to Center.

 

[ajones]

thanks for the quick responses....

I wanted something that was flexible as new data entry was done. I would rather not have to manually adjust the height of the cell for each line. As some rows will have 1 line some may have 6 lines depending on the column width.

For horizontal padding I thought about centering but if I don't know how much text is there that is word wrapped along with some rows would have numbers needing the decimal point to line up the challenge is greater.

I am experimenting with the idea of doing Format Cells - > Alignment -> Horizontal - > Left (Indent) -- indent by 2.

that may help with some but was hoping for a cleaner way especially for the horizontal. spacing.


I assume others would agree is is not good practice to have blank rows and columns in a lot of data.

 

[Joe4]

I assume others would agree is is not good practice to have blank rows and columns in a lot of data.

It all depends on what you are using it for and how data is to be updated.

If you are looking at "prettying up the data", there are better tools to use than Excel, such as doing a mail merge with Word or using a reporting tool like Crystal Reports.

If the data is not really linked to anything else and not really used in processing (you are just trying to report it and make it look nice), then there shouldn't be a problem with adding blank rows.

To try to create something that works "on-the-fly" will probably require a bit of VBA. Are you comfortable supporting that?