Formatting one cell. Autosum and copying formulas.

[Computee]

Hi

I am still a novice with Excel, and although I have a good idea about
Microsoft products, I can't understand why I cannot get this right.

I have formatted a table which has the months of the year running
horizontally and the days of the month vertically. I enter amounts of income
or expenses on the table and then have a bottom row for the totals.
Everything seemed fine and it worked nicely.

However when I tried to edit - just the cell with the word TOTAL in it as I
wanted it to appear with a unique background to the rest of the table, Excel
will not allow me to do this. The FILL icon simply brings up emtpy colors
and will not allow me to select any unique colour. Is there any way I can
override this. For some reason, it must have copied across formatting from
other cells into this block as well, and I would like to override this, or
somehow do it so that I can make this block have it's own unique color.

I am also trying to work out how to get Excel to copy the numbering I place
on the vertical side so that I don't have to enter each day, but can some
how copy the formula from the first two (1 and 2) across so that by just
selecting the remaining cells, Excel will automatically number them for me.

Also...could someone please clarify for me how to autosum a column. For some
reason when I click the Autosum button, it simply chooses a few of the last
cells in the column, instead of the entire row.

Many thanks.

C

 

[Gord Dibben]

Computee

In-line comments......

Hi

I am still a novice with Excel, and although I have a good idea about
Microsoft products, I can't understand why I cannot get this right.

I have formatted a table which has the months of the year running
horizontally and the days of the month vertically. I enter amounts of income
or expenses on the table and then have a bottom row for the totals.
Everything seemed fine and it worked nicely.

However when I tried to edit - just the cell with the word TOTAL in it as I
wanted it to appear with a unique background to the rest of the table, Excel
will not allow me to do this. The FILL icon simply brings up emtpy colors
and will not allow me to select any unique colour.

Sounds like the sheet is Protected. Try tools>protection>unprotect sheet.

Is there any way I can
override this. For some reason, it must have copied across formatting from
other cells into this block as well, and I would like to override this, or
somehow do it so that I can make this block have it's own unique color.

I am also trying to work out how to get Excel to copy the numbering I place
on the vertical side so that I don't have to enter each day, but can some
how copy the formula from the first two (1 and 2) across so that by just
selecting the remaining cells, Excel will automatically number them for me.

entering a 1 and 2 then dragging across or down will increment numbers.

same can be said for formulas. dragging will increment cell references.

Also...could someone please clarify for me how to autosum a column. For some
reason when I click the Autosum button, it simply chooses a few of the last
cells in the column, instead of the entire row.

perhaps some of the cells in the range are formatted as Text?

Format to General then copy an empty cell and select your range of cells then
paste special>add

Many thanks.

C

Gord Dibben Excel MVP