CHAPTER 3 ■ BEST WAYS TO ENTER AND EDIT DATA

Figure 3-4. Symbol button is located in the Ribbon’s Symbols group

The Symbol dialog box has two tabs, one for symbols and the other for special characters. The Special
Characters tab displays commonly used symbols such as the copyright, trademark, different styles of closing
quotes, and so on. The Symbols tab contains many more special characters, and that will be our focus in this
section.
The symbols that are available on the Symbols tab depend on the selected font. Different fonts have
different symbols that they can create. Some fonts have a lot more available symbols than others. For
example, the generic (normal text) option, shown in Figure 3-5, provides a very large selection of characters.

Figure 3-5. Use this when you need to enter a character not available on your keyboard

The Recently used symbols list displays the last 36 symbols that you have used. You can insert one of the
symbols or special characters into a cell by clicking it and then clicking the Insert button.

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Clicking the Insert button places the selected symbol in the current cell but it doesn’t close the Symbol
dialog box. This allows you to enter multiple symbols in the same cell without having to reopen the Symbol
dialog box. You may have to move the Symbol dialog box if it is obstructing the view of the cell in which you
are entering a symbol or special character.
Clicking the down arrow to the right of the from: drop-down box reveals three categories of symbols to
select from. See Figure 3-6.

Figure 3-6. Categories of symbols

■ Note The three options in Figure 3-6 are different ways your computer can represent data.

Unicode stands for Universal Code. Unicode code can display over 16,000 symbols. It is used to represent all
the symbols from all the languages around the world.

ASCII stands for American Standard Code of Information Interchange. The ASCII format of creating symbols
has been around for a long time. It is capable of creating up to 256 different symbols. It uses symbols from the
United States and Western Europe.

ASCII(hex) codes are hexadecimal. They can use numbers from 0 to 15

The Character code is the numeric representation for the symbol you select. The Character code will be
different for the same symbol depending upon whether it is in a decimal or hexadecimal format. If you know
the character code for the symbol you wish to use, you can enter it to select the symbol.

EXERCISE 3-2: ENTER SPECIAL CHARACTERS

In this exercise, you add special characters to a spreadsheet. If you have closed the Chapter 3 workbook
from the last practice, reopen it.
1. Create a new worksheet. Rename the worksheet tab “Special Characters.”
2. Click cell B2. On the Ribbon, click the Insert tab. In the Symbols group, click the
Symbol button.
3. Select normal text from the Font drop-down box, and then select ASCII (Decimal)
from the from drop-down list in the bottom right corner of the dialog box. Increase
the size of the Symbol dialog box until you can see all the symbols without having
to scroll.
4. Click the ½ symbol. Notice the Character code for the ½ symbol is 189. Click the
Insert button. Move the Symbol dialog box so that you can see cell B2.

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■ Note Unfortunately you can’t select another cell in your spreadsheet and then insert another symbol. You
must first close the Symbol dialog box, select another cell, and then reopen the Symbol dialog box.

5. Click the Close button on the Symbol dialog box.

6. Type 25 in cell C2. Don’t press Enter. We will add a ¢ after the 25.
7. In the Symbols group on the Ribbon, click the Symbol button. Drag across (normal
text) in the Font drop-down box if it isn’t already highlighted. Type Ti then press the
Tab key. This will display the symbols for the Times New Roman font. Click the ¢
symbol then click the Insert button. Move the Symbol dialog box so that you can
see cell C2.
8. Click the down arrow of the from drop-down box and select Unicode (Hex). You’ll
see a lot more symbols. Click the different symbols; as you do, notice that some of
the symbols have a letter such A, B, C, D, E, or F in their character code.

■ Note When you selected Unicode (Hex) a Subset drop-down box appeared in the upper right-hand corner.
Click some of the different subsets.

9. Close the Symbol dialog box.

10. Click cell D2. In the Symbols group on the Ribbon click the Symbol button. Click the
½ symbol in the Recently used symbols. Click the Insert button.
11. Click the Special Characters tab in the Symbol dialog box. Double-click the
Copyright symbol. Double-clicking a symbol does the same thing as clicking it and
then clicking the Insert button. Move the Symbol dialog box so that you can see cell
D2. Cell D2 should contain ½©.
12. Click the Symbols tab. Click the down arrow for the Font drop-down box. Select
Webdings. This font contains some images that you might find useful. Also look at
the Wingdings, Wingdings2, and Wingdings3 fonts.
13. Close the Symbol dialog box.
14. Click cell E2. You can enter most of the ASCII symbols directly into a cell if you
remember the character code. To enter a symbol directly into a cell you would hold
down the Alt key while you entered the character code on the numeric keypad. The
character code can only be entered on the numeric keypad. Make sure the Num
Lock key is on before you start entering the number.
15. Remember that the Character code for the ½ symbol is 189. Hold down the Alt key,
type 0189, and then release the Alt key. You should see the ½ symbol. The extra 0
was needed to make it a four-character number.

16. Click the Save button on the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

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How to Change Column Widths

When the text you type is longer than the width of the column, the overflow characters are displayed in the
adjacent cell(s) to the right if they do not contain any data. The characters may appear to be a part of the
adjacent cells but they are not stored there. They are stored in the cell in which you entered them. In the
following example, the name Anthony Bradtmueller displays across cells A3, B3, and C3 but the entire name
is actually only stored in cell A3. See Figure 3-7.

Figure 3-7. Text overflow in next cell

If there are overflow characters and the adjacent cell to the right is not empty, then by default the
overflow characters are hidden as illustrated in Figure 3-8.

Figure 3-8. Text is hidden by text in next cell

If you are entering numeric data, the column will automatically expand to fit the size of the number.
If the number that you are entering is the longest value in the column and it contains a decimal, then the
decimal value may not be shown in the cell. If you change the width of a column that contains numeric data,
cells in that column will no longer automatically adjust to the size of any new entries. If a cell in a column
that has had its size changed contains numeric data that is longer than the width of the cell, the cell will
display # signs instead of the numeric values. See Figure 3-9.

Figure 3-9. # signs mean the column isn’t wide enough to display all the data

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The sight of all these # signs always puts new users into a panic. They think that something is horribly
wrong with their spreadsheet.
If you click a cell that contains # signs, the actual value will be displayed in the formula bar. Just
remember when you see # signs in a column the simple cure is to expand the width of the column.
If you enter a very large number into a cell you may see something like . This is exponential
notation. If you would rather view the value as a long number you can select the cell, click the Number
Format’s drop-down arrow located on the Home tab and then select which format you want the exponential
format converted to. See Figure 3-10. The number will probably be too big to display in the cell; therefore
you will need to widen the column width to view the number.

Figure 3-10. You can convert exponential notation values to one of these formats

You can view the column width by holding down your left mouse button while your cursor is on the line
between the column headings (the cursor will turn into a double arrow). The default column width is 8.43
this allows for about 8 or 9 characters provided you are using the default font type of Calibri and font size of
11. See Figure 3-11.

Figure 3-11. Check column width

Column widths can be changed by using the mouse to drag the column to the desired size. Expanding
a column width can be accomplished by holding down your left mouse button while your cursor is on the
line between the column heads, when the column width is displayed drag the line to the right to the desired
width. As you drag, Excel shows you the width as well as a dotted vertical line that provides a visual clue as to
where the column border will be changed to. See Figure 3-12.

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