Adjusting Status Bar Font Size

Excel can helpfully display some statistical information in the program's Status Bar. If you cannot see all the information you need, then you may want to adjust the font used in the Status Bar. Unfortunately, this is not as easy of a proposition as you may hope.

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(Thanks to Steve Aprahamian, Ron Solecki, Guy Goodwin, Philip Standley, and Wayne Edmondson for contributing to this tip.)

Indenting Cell Contents

Excel allows you to apply several types of alignments to cells. One type of alignment allows you to indent cell contents from the left or right. Here's how to do it.

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Is It Worth a Thousand Words?

Tired of looking at boring numbers? Add the persuasive power of charts and graphics to your worksheets. Excel's tools can help you present your data in a more understandable, accessible manner. Find out why a picture is worth a thousand words.

Checking for Text

Need to figure out if a particular cell contains text? You can use the ISTEXT function to easily return this bit of trivia.

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Making a Cell's Contents Bold within a Macro

When your macro is processing information in a worksheet, do you need to periodically make the contents of a cell bold? You can do so by adding one simple statement to your macro, as demonstrated in this tip.

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Controlling Entry Order on Unprotected Cells

When you protect a worksheet, one of the benefits is that you can limit which cells can be used for data entry. How a user moves from cell to cell is controlled by Excel. If you want to control the order of cell selection rather than having Excel control it, read on.

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(Thanks to Willy Vanhaelen for contributing to this tip.)

Making PROPER Skip Certain Words

The PROPER worksheet function is used to change the case of text so that only the first letter of each word is uppercase. However, some words should not have the initial letter uppercased. There are a couple of ways you can modify the work done by PROPER, as described in this tip.

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This section is for those having problems making Excel behave. If Excel is giving you fits, feel free to submit your own Help Wanted question.

If you have a solution for the problems below, click the link after the problem to send us your answer. (All responses become the sole property of Sharon Parq Associates, Inc., and can be used in any way deemed appropriate.) If your response is used in a future issue, you will be credited for your contribution to the answer.

Making Worksheet Copies for Daily Shifts

I have an Excel worksheet that I need to use for each of 3 shifts each day. I make a copy of this worksheet for each shift, each day, over and over. It seems that it would be helpful if I had a macro that could copy the master worksheet 3 times for each day in a month, naming the worksheets "February 1 Shift 1," "February 1 Shift 2," etc. I cannot find a macro to do something like this and was wondering if anyone could help.
—Ryan Lewis (provide an answer for this Help Wanted question)