I use Microsoft Excel for many spreadsheet applications such as grade and attendance sheets. The spreadsheets can be made much more readable and effective by using a few simple format functions.

First off, set up headers for each page by clicking “View”, “Header and Footer…”, ”Custom Header”. Heading information can be added in three separate columns that will be Left justified, center justified, and right justified. There are also automatic buttons with useful information such as current date, page number, and total number of pages.

I find that setting up a variety of borders in my spreadsheet helps group data into logical subsets. For instance, on my grade sheets, I separate lecture scores from lab scores with heavier lines and individual scores with lighter lines. To do this, select a group of cells on the spreadsheet, click on “Format”, “Cells”, “Border”. Click on the border style desired, then click on the placement of the lines in the sample box shown.

While many experienced users will already be very familiar with this formatting, I used Excel for years without using these techniques and perhaps some of you are doing the same. I have attached a copy of my current grade sheet template as an example of these techniques. Excel can provide much more sophisticated formatting than shown on my template, but I like to keep it simple. Of course, you are welcome to modify and use these worksheets if you wish.

Grade-Attendance Sheet Template.xls

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