Spreadsheet Appearance
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The proper formatting of worksheet cells improves document appearance, and allows end-users to read, find and understand data more easily. Cell formatting includes a variety of features such as multiple settings for font, font size, character style (bold, italics, underlined), text alignment, background and foreground colors, etc. This document explains the concepts of Cell Styles, Direct Cell Formatting and Style Flags.
Note
Spreadsheet control doesn’t support rich formatted text. However, you can use the Spreadsheet Document API to create documents with rich text formatting. When a user exports or prints the document, this content should be displayed correctly in the resulting file.
Cell Styles
A style is a named set of predefined cell format characteristics (font settings, number format, content alignment, cell borders, fill color, etc.). When applying a style, all format settings are applied to a cell or cell range in a single step.
A workbook maintains all available styles in a StyleCollection collection, which is accessed via the IWorkbook.Styles property. By default, this collection contains a set of built-in cell styles similar to Microsoft® Excel® (including the Normal style, which is applied to all unformatted cells in the workbook by default). Identifiers of all built-in styles are listed by the BuiltInStyleId enumerator.
You can do the following to manage the workbook’s collection of cell styles.
- Modify an existing style by changing the properties of the corresponding Style object. Use the Formatting.BeginUpdate - Formatting.EndUpdate method pair to make multiple modifications to a style.
- Create a new custom style by adding a new Style object to the IWorkbook.Styles collection. Note that by default, new styles are created based on the Normal style.
- Duplicate an existing style by creating a new style and copying all format settings from the existing style via the Style.CopyFrom method.
For examples, see the How to: Create or Modify a Style document.
Note
All custom styles of an Excel document that is loaded to the ASPxSpreadsheet control are automatically added to the IWorkbook.Styles collection, and can be accessed by their names.
To format a cell or cell range by applying a style, assign the required Style object to the CellRange.Style property. For details, see the How to: Apply a Style to a Cell or Range of Cells example.
Direct Cell Formatting
To change cell appearance, you can not only apply a style, but also set the required format characteristics directly for an individual cell or cell range. This is called direct cell formatting. In the ASPxSpreadsheet control, direct cell formatting options are available via the Ribbon interface (the Home tab).
To perform direct cell formatting programmatically, change the cell or cell range properties that are inherited from the Formatting interface (Formatting.Fill, Formatting.Font, Formatting.Alignment, Formatting.Borders and Formatting.NumberFormat). By default, these properties are set according to the style applied to the cell. Use the following approaches.
- To format an individual cell, access the corresponding Cell object (see How to: Access a Cell in a Worksheet) and modify its formatting properties.
- To format a range of cells, access and modify the Formatting object using the CellRange.BeginUpdateFormatting - CellRange.EndUpdateFormatting method pair.
Thus, a Cell or CellRange object’s properties inherited from the Formatting interface provide access to the actual formatting specified for a cell or range of cells (including characteristics defined by an applied style and direct cell formatting attributes).
Style Flags
As mentioned above, the appearance of a cell is determined by the format settings of the applied style and the format settings of the cell itself. Each of these formatting types provides a set of flags (Formatting.Flags). Each flag corresponds to a specific group of format attributes, and indicates whether to use the attributes specified in the applied style or the attributes specified directly for the cell.
| Group | Attributes | Flag |
|---|---|---|
| Alignment | Horizontal and vertical alignment of cell content, indentation and text wrap. | StyleFlags.Alignment |
| Borders | Cell border line styles and colors. | StyleFlags.Borders |
| Fill | Cell background color. | StyleFlags.Fill |
| Font | Cell font settings (name, style, color and size). | StyleFlags.Font |
| Number Format | Cell number format. | StyleFlags.Number |
| Protection | Cell protection options (Locked and Hidden). | StyleFlags.Protection |