How do I get two different justifications in an Excel cell?

August 31, 2011 6:55 PM

Excel question: I'm making a calendar/schedule in Excel, and I have the dates (numbers) aligned in the bottom right corner. I want to add information and text, though, starting in the top left corner. How do I do this?

If there were some way to "lock" those dates in the corner so that I could change the justification...or if there were a way to override the justification in a single cell. Another thing I thought of (but don't know how to do) is if the date were somehow part of the background of the cell, kind of like cell wallpaper, very large, with opacity set at 50%. Then I could type whatever in the cell, in front of the date.

Any ideas on how I can make this work, you Excel masters, you?

posted by zardoz to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: Make each calendar square actually two cells, one on top of the other, with no border between them, just around the outsides. Align each the way you describe and make the type your desired size.
posted by lakeroon at 6:59 PM on August 31, 2011

What lakeroon said. Attempting this all in a single cell is a migraine waiting to happen.
posted by pompomtom at 7:01 PM on August 31, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks, lakeroon. That's such a simple solution, why didn't I think of that?
posted by zardoz at 7:25 PM on August 31, 2011

Ditto lakeroon. Plus, you can make editing the information text more easy by unlocking those cells (select cells, Format Cells, Protection tab, unselect "Locked") and then Protecting the worksheet. Now, when you tab through Excel will only move to those cells you've unlocked.
posted by robabroad at 12:32 PM on September 2, 2011