Excel Column Width Units Trial And Error

Here is a good description of how column widths are determined in Excel (for Windows).

Even the tool tip that shows when you use the mouse to adjust column width is different in Excel for Mac characters per inch is shown first, followed by inches in parenthesis.

As you can see the tool tip in Excel for Windows shows 8.43 characters per inch, with pixels in parenthesis.

In Excel 2003 and Excel 2008 for Mac select menu Format, Column, Standard Width, and then type in a value.

This was for a template this person was creating where they wanted the Excel cells to of a specific size (in inches).

You can follow the same steps to set the row height in inches as well.

For example, if you specify 4 centimeters, it may give you 3.98 centimeters.

This is something you cant get around.

Excel Column Width Units Trial And Error

There is no direct way to assign exact column widths in inchescentimeters without trial and error.

Microsoft Excel uses the number of digits (specifically, the number of zeros) using the Normal style font as the measurement to determine column widths.

There are some fonts that have digits of different widths, but this is unusual.) For example, using the default font, a column width of 10 means the column width needed to display 10 non-bold, non-italic, Arial 10-point zeros.

On the Macintosh, this same column width is 10 non-bold, non-italic Geneva 10-point zeros.

Microsoft Excel uses digits to determine column widths so that when you change the font for a style on a worksheet, the columns grow or shrink to display this number of digits in the column.

The rest of the article gives some VBA methods to help you work with this issue.

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Excel For Mac Column Width Units