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The purpose of right-aligning is to make it easy for someone to look down the column and compare different numbers. You note that good practise is for numbers to be right-aligned, then disregard that. Any added formatting therefore needs to be strongly justified. Formatting creates noise and draws attention away from the data. Formatting should not be used unless it serves this aim. If your focus is on people understanding the data, then you may be interested in some feedback based on best practise for academic literature on statistics:Īs an overarching principle, the purpose of table formatting is to aid the comprehension of the data. Making a table look ‘attractive’ is subjective, and if that’s your aim then there’s a great deal of flexibility in how you achieve it. In the adjacent column B, copy these three CHAR formulas (you can delete them later): In a new blank Sheet, put these values in cells A1 to A3: It’s significantly easier/quicker to read and absorb that information.ġ. Now take a look at the same table with colors and arrows added to call out the % change column:
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By changing the color of a table cell’s text as the data changes, you can bring it to the attention of your user.Ĭonsider the following sales table which has a % change column: It’s a great tool to apply to tables in your Google Sheets dashboards for example, where the data is changing. Hidden in the Custom Number Format menu is a conditional formatting option for setting different formats for numbers greater than 0, equal to 0, or less than zero.
HOW TO CHANGE TEXT DIRECTION IN A TABLE IN GOOGLE DOCS HOW TO
How to make a table in Google Sheets with colors and indicator arrows Select the color scheme you want, whether you have a header or footer row, and even choose custom colors if you wish: Simply highlight your whole table and then open up the Alternating Colors option sidebar. Sure you can do this manually, but it’s way easier and quicker to do with the Alternating Colors tool under the formatting menu. How to make a table in Google Sheets with Alternating colors However, for tables that are part of dashboard reports or are being presented to clients, you can add colors to match your branding or bring additional context to your numbers. I could stop the article here, as the table is now sufficiently formatted to maximize legibility. For example 2 decimal places if you need that level of detail to show cents on the dollar, but remove decimal places if they’re not needed for large numbers: Add currency signs to financial numbers to add context.Ĭhoose an appropriate number of decimal places. Formatting dataĬhoose appropriate formatting options for the data in your tables.Īdd a thousand separator to big numbers above a thousand.
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However, if you’re working with just a year, as in the example above, you can get away with center aligning, just be consistent. Right align dates (which they are by default). For example, the ID numbers above can be center-aligned. Really the only exception to this rule is for numbers that are not acting as numbers, i.e. Right align numbers (which they are by default). Let’s align those columns, they’re messy!Ĭenter column headings, ID numbers, or other standardized entries. Go for bold, center-aligned and wrap the text, so it all shows. How to Format a Table in Google Sheets Header rows The goal of this article is to show you how to make a table in Google Sheets look great, like this: Let’s start with a simple table, completely devoid of any formatting: A collection of formatting tips for how to make a table in Google Sheets.