Computer Skills

Beginner

60 mins

Teacher/Student led

+80 XP

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC or iPad/Tablet

Borders, Shading & Readability

Learn to format spreadsheets for readability using borders, cell shading, and column widths. Transform your project budget from a grid of numbers into a professional document that's easy to read at a glance.

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1 Introduction
2 Key Concepts
3 Step-by-step Task
4 Common Issues
5 Portfolio Build
6 Reflection
7 Lesson Summary
Quiz

1 - Introduction

Welcome

A spreadsheet that holds correct numbers but can't be read at a glance is a spreadsheet that won't be used. Today you'll add borders, shade your heading row, and tidy your column widths so your project budget looks like something a Work Experience supervisor would actually take off the printer and read.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Apply borders and cell shading purposefully to group related data
Adjust column widths and row heights so every value is visible without clipping
Test a finished sheet against the phone-screen and back-of-classroom readability rubric

Warm-up

Picture this: you print your project budget and pin it on a noticeboard. Someone stands two metres back and glances at it for three seconds. What would they need to see to know it's a budget and where the total is? Hold that answer in your head, you're about to build exactly that.

Teacher Notes

Students should have their 05_project_budget from the earlier spreadsheet lessons available in their Digital_Portfolio folder.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Key Concepts

Formatting is not decoration. Every border, shade, and column-width decision you make either helps the reader find something or gets in the way. Here's how the three tools work and when to use them.

Concept	Why it matters	Example
Borders — thin lines drawn around individual cells or a block of cells	Borders tell the reader "this block of numbers belongs together" and separate data from the white space around it	A full border around your budget's cost rows, with a thicker line under the heading row, makes the totals row visually pop
Cell shading — a background fill colour applied to one or more cells	Light shading on a heading row or a totals row lets someone's eye jump straight to the information that matters most	Pale blue on the top row of a Centra stocktake sheet — the reader sees at once that row 1 is labels, not data
Column width — how wide each column is in pixels or characters	If a column is too narrow, numbers show as {{code:#####}} and text gets cut off — the sheet looks broken even when it's correct	A "Description" column holding "Venue hire — parish hall" needs to be roughly twice as wide as a column holding "€120"
Readability rubric — a two-test check you run before you call a sheet finished	A sheet that reads well at your desk can still fail on a phone screen or a classroom projector, which is where it's most often viewed	—

The phone-screen and back-of-classroom rubric

Before you save, do these two quick tests. Phone test: on a laptop, zoom out to 75%. If you can't read the headings or find the total, your text is too small or your widths are wrong. Back-of-classroom test: push your chair back about a metre and glance at the screen. If the headings don't stand out from the data rows within one second, your shading or borders aren't doing enough work.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Step-by-step Task

You'll build a small practice stocktake sheet, then format it so the headings, data, and total row each read as a distinct band. Once you've done it here, you'll apply the exact same moves to your real project budget in the next section.

Teacher Notes

The practice sheet is deliberately small so students focus on the formatting moves, not the data entry.

+15 XP

4 - Common Issues

Common issues

Issue	Solution
Cells show {{code:#####}} instead of numbers	The column is too narrow. Double-click the line between the column letters (e.g. between B and C) to auto-fit, or drag it wider.
My borders disappeared when I applied shading	Shading can cover faint borders. Re-select the range and re-apply All Borders — shading sits behind borders, so both stay visible.
The fill colour is too dark and I can't read the text	Pick the palest shade in the colour picker. Dark fills with black text fail the back-of-classroom test. If you want a bold colour, change the text to white.
AutoFit made a column absurdly wide because of one long label	Shorten the label, or manually drag that column narrower. If you'd rather let the long text wrap onto two lines, select the cell and click the {{btn:Wrap Text}} button on the Home ribbon (Excel Online) or the text-wrapping toolbar icon between the fill-colour and alignment tools (Google Sheets).

+10 XP

5 - Portfolio Build

Independent Practice

Your goal: Turn your project budget from a grid of numbers into a sheet someone can read at a glance — so when you hand it to a Work Experience supervisor or pitch it in class, the totals and the categories are the first things the reader finds.

Time: ~20 minutes

Task: Open your {{code:Digital_Portfolio}} folder and open {{code:05_project_budget}} — the budget you built in the earlier spreadsheet lessons. Apply the same three moves you just practised: borders around the whole data block, a shaded and bold heading row, and a different shade on your total row. Finish by running the 75% zoom and back-of-classroom tests from the readability rubric, and fix anything that fails.

Success criteria:

The heading row is visibly different from the data rows at one glance from a metre back
No numbers are clipped or showing as {{code:#####}}, and no text is cut off
The total row is obviously the summary — a different shade from the headings, not the same colour
The sheet still reads clearly at 75% zoom (phone-screen test)

Teacher Notes

Students may need help finding their saved 05_project_budget if they're unsure where it is in their cloud storage.

+15 XP

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This lesson is copyright of Coding Ireland 2017 - 2025. Unauthorised use, copying or distribution is not allowed.

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Borders, Shading & Readability

Teacher Class Feed

1 - Introduction

Welcome

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Warm-up

2 - Key Concepts

The phone-screen and back-of-classroom rubric

3 - Step-by-step Task

4 - Common Issues

Common issues

5 - Portfolio Build

Independent Practice

Unlock the Full Learning Experience

XP