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How formatting layers

A cell can get its look from several places at once. They are applied from the most general to the most specific, and the later one wins, field by field:

  1. The template - the base look (alignment, header weight and background, lines, banding, outline), and your global font (Start tab > Font Name / Font Size with nothing selected).
  2. The column - formatting you gave a column's values.
  3. The row - formatting you gave a row. It wins over the column on a cell where both say something.
  4. The cell - formatting you gave that single cell. It wins over row and column.
  5. Conditional Formatting rules - a rule that matches the cell's value wins over everything above, for the fields it sets.

"Field by field" matters: a cell can be bold from its column, red from its row and filled from a rule. Only the fields that are set win; a layer that does not mention a field leaves the one below in place.

The same for borders​

A cell's borders come from its column and its row. A side that both set takes the row's. A cell's own borders win over both, and a rule's borders win over those. The column's top and bottom borders only apply to the first and last row of the table, and the row's left and right borders to the first and last cell of the row - which is what lets Outside Borders on a block of rows or columns draw one frame around the block. See Borders.

Headers and the first column are separate​

  • A column header has formatting of its own, separate from the values below it. Select the column and click its header a second time to narrow the selection to the header; the Start tab then formats the header only. The Formatting panel lists a column's header settings after its values' settings, as "Header ...".
  • The first column (the row labels and the corner cells above them) is formatted as one column of its own: select it by clicking a corner cell. Its row labels and its header (the corner cells) are two parts, each with its own formatting. For the row labels it is the layer under a row's own formatting: where a row sets something, the row wins.

What a template changes - and does not​

A template sets the base look and a few View tab options. It does not remove what you formatted: your column, row, cell and first-column formatting stays when you pick another template. See Templates.

What Reset does​

Reset (Start tab) removes all of these layers except the data: template, row, column, cell and first-column formatting, rules and View tab options. See Saving, Undo and Reset.