Excel 2003:Column Widening

You probably noticed, as you typed in the numbers, some of the words were just too wide for the default cell width (Investments and Miscellaneous). Let's widen column B to take care of this.

Slowly move the mouse arrow to the right edge of the B cell (between the B and the C). The cursor will turn into an arrow pointing right and left with a small vertical line in the middle (see arrow below). Hold down the left mouse button and move (drag) the line to the right.


As soon as you start to move (drag), a dotted vertical line will go down the spreadsheet and it will move as you hold down the left button and drag the mouse. Keep dragging to the right until you are past the widest word and a bit more (for some space). Release the button. The column is widened. Notice in the upper left corner of the screen, below File in the menu bar, and above the buttons, that as you hold down and drag that it tells you that current width of the column.

This is one way to widen a column. Here is another way. Point to the B at the top of column B (in the Gray area) and click the left mouse button (The cell should turn dark blue and the column light blue.).
Now, keeping the cursor somewhere in the “blue” area, click the Right Mouse Button. Notice that a menu with Column Width… appears. Click-on Column Width… and type in 15 and click-on OK. This is another way to widen a column.