Not realy a tec problem,but about excel

[celia]

I have tried many times to use Microsoft Excel and never get it to do what i want (it usually moves along and comes out all out of order).That is to make a page that looks like the burial page of the cemetery.Or Christening page of a Church.
When buried        name    age     abode  and so on
date

The christening i now have are,Bap date, Child's name ,Parents  c name fathers  s name and another four columns. I did try once making my own document but the lines cells keep moving .Is there an easier way to make a document that i can add my finding to

Celia

[julianb]

sounds like you need to fix the size of the cells, and wrap the text - Format/Cells.  Give that a go

JULIAN

[Nadine Moore]

Hi Celia

Can you give a bit more info what you mean by

it usually moves along and comes out all out of order

but the lines cells keep moving

An alternative is using a table in Word like below. As you use the Tab key (above Caps Lock) to move through the cells, it creates a new line when you need one.

Dinie

[Wendi]

Hi Celia

Once you get to know Excel it'll be fine.

Golden role is "ask yourself what you want to do" - keep that in your head and go thro the menu until you find something that matches.

In this case from your question - and bear with me - it's "how can I make columns" so Line A make a row(1, 2 3 etc)  of: "When buried        name    age     abode  and so on date" each heading to a cell. 

Important : when the typing overlaps a cell ignore it 'till you've finished.

Then go back and click on the cell and select  "Format, Column, Autofit" and bingo it stretches to fill with the words you have typed.

If later on in say abode, you have to type say, Hamel Hempstead, and that's longer than abode, click  on Hemel Hempstead and same again"Format, Column, Autofit" it will widen the length of the column to accommodate the longer word.

Hope it makes some sense, the big "do" is if you are going to print off, make sure you preview first!

Wendi

[Tony Payne]

Clicking on a column will highlight that column, you can then select Format/Cells and click on the Alignement tab.  Check (tick) Word Wrap and when you type into a column the words will wrap around if the column is not big enough.

You can change the width of a column using Format/Column Width but also you can do this by dragging the column divider across to increase or decrease the size.

You also need to consider the page width, as any columns off the right of the page will be printed on a separate sheet.  Using File/Set Print Area having highlighted the columns to be printed will show you the last column to be printed, using a dotted line.

The F1 (Help) key does give you a lot of help in Excel, although it is often hard to try and find the topic that you want.  You can also go into Google, click on "More" at the top above the search box, and then "Groups".  This will take you to the Usenet Groups section, where you can search on just about anything to do with Excel.  There are a number of Excel newsgroups, and many many postings.  There are bound to be some that help solve most of your questions.  The newsgroups helped me to learn a lot, including a lot of trial and error of course...

And finally..........
Don't forget that in Excel you can do a Print Preview to see what the printed spreadsheet will look like.  You don't have to keep printing garbage - preview it first.

[celia]

Thank you all for your speedy replies,I will read all your suggestions till it sinks in,I recognize some of the words used I did use Excel when i was on 6 month computer course but that was about 6/7 years ago. I did a flight path
as a test,flight and estimated time of arrival, speed and all that.I must have got it right cos i got 2 ticks I also had to do the books at the end of the week for the greengrocer   So i will have a fiddle tomorrow you never know it might all come back. If it doesnt I will be Back

Celia

[trish251]

Hi Celia

If using excel for genealogy you have to remember that Microsoft thinks the world started in 1900. Unless things have changed in more recent versions - mine is v2002 - If you use the date format for columns it doesn't recognise pre 1900 dates as dates - hence any time you try and sort them into date order it doesn't work. When you enter the dates it converts 1900 and later dates into the default date format - but dates pre 1900 are left as text - VERY confusing.

I  input the dates as 3 numeric columns - viz year/month/day - and usually swear at microsoft while doing same. You can also input them as a single number yyyymmdd but I find that slightly more confusing when looking at the data onscreen or on paper.

I also put surname and given name into different colums so I can easily sort by one or the other - and it keeps individual colums to a reasonable width without using the wrap option.

Trish

PS   I would be interested to hear how anyone else handles the mix of early and late dates in excel

[downside]

I would be interested to hear how anyone else handles the mix of early and late dates in excel

I use the dd-mmm-yyyy format e.g. 06-Jun-1801.  I find it it easier to read dates with alphanumeric characters rather than all digit dates.  If you get any problems with dates then you can always divide them the into 3 columns so that the year is in its own column.

You can automatically adjust the column width by double clicking the area between the columns e.g. A | B | C

Put your cursor on the vertical line and then double click.

downside

[celia]

Dinie
Thank you for the form it's brilliant that looks like the one i used on my old computer.I am not into these things and couldn't find anything on the one i have now.I was about to ask you how do i make the  lines of squares (That were taking up to much space)narrower withway,because i only have at this time15 entries they took up a second page.Then i noticed the little red markers on the ruler on the left side.I found that by moving them i can bring the lines closer together.I also made the font size 10. So now all entries are on one page.It's all coming back now As to the moving lines i mentioned it might have been when i tried to make this type of form on a blank page.I don't think i would be able to use Excel, this way is better.I have never been to Microsoft office,is the form from there.I love being able to use the drop down menue and put things where i want them

Thank you;)Celia