This is my preferred method of showing text across a selection of cells. Use this instead of merging cells. Merging cells can play havoc with some other excel functions.
My theory about why “Center across selection” is not widely used is the placement in the dialog box.

You see it is at the bottom of the list.
This option will center the text across a selection of cells without merging any cells

So you know how to apply formatting to text in cells using colour, bold, italics, font size, etc… You may not be aware of this little trick that will give you new options for formatting your Excel worksheets.

You can apply different formatting to different parts of text within the same cell.

Here’s how…

1) Select the cell;
2) Highlight the portion of text within the cell that you want to apply the formatting to;
3) Apply the formatting as you normally do. Don’t press Enter yet!
4) Select and apply formatting to other parts of the text;
5) When you’re done just press Enter.

Thanks to the Excel Addict for this tip.

I often want to present a date in the why I think suits the reader rather that the options given in Excel.

Luckily, Excel gives the ability to customise all formats. I wanted to show the date in the following format: Sun 4 May 08. By selecting the Custom option from the Format cells dialogue I was able to change the format type to ddd d mmm yy.

By using the letters ddd, my date will show the three letter version of the day, i.e. Mon, Tue etc. If I used dddd, the full day name would be shown. The month works in the same way, m will give 1 digit, mm will give 2 digits, with a leading zero for months earlier than October. mmm will give the three letter version of the month and mmmm will show the full text of the month. Years have only two options y and yy show the 2 digit version of the year, yyy and yyyy give the four digit version of the year.

If you date format is too long for the cell and you don’t want to make the cell wider, then you should convert the date to text by using the TEXT() function. Try this example =TEXT(TODAY(),”dddd d mmmm yy”) where TODAY() will give you today’s date.