Excel 2007 weird formatting issues

[ZMAN]

Does anyone here use Excel 2007 already?

I began using it and when I tried to do my favorite border with dropped
shadow, there was no longer such option in Excel 2007. Instead I can
choose to create a rectangle box (Inser -> Illustrations -> Shapes ->
Rectangle Box). However, the only way to have a dropped shadow is to
have a solid filled box (which of course covers the cells underneath).
If you don't choose solid fill then you are going to see shadows not
only on bottom and right but also on top and left which makes the
rectangle box look weird. Whatever happened to the regular border with
shadows??? It used to work so nicely in Excel 2003. Did anyone figure
out how to do this correctly?

 

[Bob Phillips]

Have you tried right-clicking the shape and Format Shape>Shadow?

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HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

 

[ZMAN]

Of course, I tried a lot of things. This seems like an oversight on
Microsoft's part unless someone figured some trick to fix it...

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi

You can do exactly the same with 2007 as with 2003.
On the Home Tab, click on the Border tool dropdown.
Bottom of list - More Borders
Select Thick font for Bottom and Right border, select Thin font for Top
and Left border

 

[ZMAN]

Roger, unfortunatley that is not exactly the same thing. It is sort of
like what I want to do but Excel 2003 allowed different boxes - they
were not borders but were a different toolbar with green box samples
and you could choose any design with different dropped shadows going in
any chosen direction. Those boxes permitted you to have real shadows
and the design made your spreadsheet/report look very professional.
Now that function was replaced with "rectangles" and you have a very
detailed ability to choose shadow options and 3D box options, etc. that
is consistent with PPT and Word. The only problem is that in order for
the shadow to only appear on bottom and right, you must make the
filling of the box solid (not transparent or 'no fill'). It seems like
a mistake or a missed option that Microsoft needs to fix...

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi

In which case got to the Insert tab and choose the dropdown on Shapes.
Select your Shape and add it to the sheet and the Format Tab will appear
allowing you set all sorts of properties for the shape.

Is this what you mean?

 

[ZMAN]

Right.... And that's exactly where you can NOT set the shadow the way
you could in 2003...