good practices in formatting ms excel spreadsheets
1. RDM Online Module 3:
Good Practices in Formatting MS Excel Spreadsheets
2. The Data Definition Sheet
The data definition worksheet contains the variable names and the variable
definitions which briefly acquaint us about the background of each data field.
variable names:
factors being observed
used also as column headers
variable definitions:
short descriptions for each factor observed
4. Good Practices in Formatting the
Data Worksheet
1. Column header
alignment: center
format: all characters in lower case, bold, no space (but can use underscore
'_')
2. Data values
Date
alignment: align right
format: dd-mmm-yyyy (e.g. 11-Jan-2014)
Numerical data
alignment: align right
format: specified number of decimal places
5. Good Practices in Formatting the
Data Worksheet
2. Data values (cont)
Text data
alignment: align left
format: dd-mmm-yyyy (e.g. 11-Jan-2014)
Same length character data
alignment: align center
General format
columns: same column spacing for all worksheets
no grid lines
fonts: same style, same size, same color