RHFech - Excel Split Table Heading Cell

Help Desk – 2006-05-09

Home

About RHFtech

Overview
  Services
  Technology
  Help
  FAQs

Fun Stuff
  Help Desk Tips
  Blog
  Links

Microsoft Excel - Split Table Heading Into Triangles

Excel table with first table cell split into two parts.

Have you ever created a table and wanted to split the first cell into two parts, one for the column heading and the other part for the row heading? If you examine this picture, you see it is possible. You may not know how to do this since it requires an intimate knowledge of Excel’s formatting properties. I show you how I do this below.

I first began using computer spreadsheets in 1981 when I worked at Smith Barney. In fact, I created the very first computer spreadsheet every used at Smith Barney. It was for acquisition analysis. Back then, I used Lotus 1-2-3. Now we almost all use Microsoft Excel. Excel is an extremely useful platform. It can do most anything when it comes to manipulating numbers and text. I once had an associate that used it as a word processor. But it can be maddeningly puzzling when it comes to formatting items within cells.

The process has two major steps. First, we enter the text we want in the cell. Then we format the cell.

Open a new spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel.
Enter the word “Month” then press Alt+Enter twice and then type “Cash Flow” into cell A1. Press Enter to accept the input. (The keystroke “Alt-Enter” places a carriage return into the text within the cell. We use two carriage returns here, the first to break the line and the second to place an empty line before the words “Cash Flow”.)
Select Format - Cells from the Excel menu. The Format Cells window opens.
Select the Border tab.
Click on the small box in the lower right of the window that has a diagonal line going from the upper left to the lower right.
Select the Alignment tab.
Select “Justify” in the drop down selections for both Horizontal and Vertical in the Text alignment section of the window.
Click the OK button.
Finally, edit the text in cell A1 to place several spaces before the word “Month” to manually position the word in the right side of the cell.

You should now have a split table heading cell.