How to use the Google Sheets toolbar

Created by Athan Romblon, Modified on Fri, 2 Feb, 2024 at 4:59 AM by Athan Romblon

The basic formatting options in Google Sheets are available above your first cell. They're labeled in the image below, but for quick reference while you're working on a sheet, just hover over an icon to see its description and shortcut key.

Screenshot of the Google Sheets toolbar showing each icon's function.

Functions like printing, undo/redo, font settings, and font styling work similarly to what you'd expect from your favorite word processor.

For everything else, the best way to show you how everything works is to dive right into an example.

I'm going to create a quick list of potential breakfast options for tomorrow morning, along with their ingredients, counts, prices, and links to YouTube videos for how to make them (who knew you could make a three-minute video about pouring cereal into a bowl?).

Screenshot of a spreadsheet that shows breakfast options and their ingredients.

For the simple example above, a lack of significant formatting is just ok. It does the basics: storing my information and allowing me to save it. But it's not something I would want to come back to each day.

Since I eat breakfast every morning, let's take some time to make this spreadsheet more user-friendly with some formatting.