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Excel - Underlining Woes - Episode 618

490 views · Published 31 March 2009 · 3:38 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial - Underlining Woes.

Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, where we tackle all your Excel woes. In this episode, we have a few open items to take care of, including a shout out to the Steele NCT Students who watch our podcast every day. Thank you for your support and keep up the great work!

Now, let's dive into today's question from Mark, a CPA who was having some trouble with underlining in Excel. He noticed that when he underlined data, whether it was a dollar amount or a percentage, the underline was always the same length. This was driving him crazy, especially when he wanted to format percentages. So, how can we solve this issue?

At first, I was a bit surprised by Mark's problem because when I type in data, the underline only covers the portion that I have typed. But then, I realized that Mark must be using the accounting format, which automatically underlines the entire cell. To fix this, we need to go into the custom number format and make a small adjustment.

To do this, go to Format Cells and click on the Custom tab. Here, you will see an asterisk followed by a space in the format. This tells Excel to fill the cell with spaces, even though it doesn't fill up the whole cell. So, for Mark's percentage issue, we can use the same trick by adding an asterisk and a space in front of the format. This will fill the cell with spaces and give the appearance of a full underline. Problem solved!

Thank you to Jeff Shroff for pointing out a much simpler solution to our toolbar issue in a previous episode. And thank you to all the smart viewers who continue to share their knowledge and tips with us. Keep them coming! And don't forget to hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. See you next time for more Excel tips and tricks on the MrExcel netcast.

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Table of Contents:
(00:00) Introduction and shout out to Steele NCT Students
(00:20) Un-docking toolbars and a shortcut from Jeff Shroff
(01:02) Question from Mark about underlining data in different formats
(01:23) Explanation of the issue and solution using custom number formats
(03:00) Different ways to format data in Excel
(03:16) Clicking Like really helps the algorithm

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Mark sends in a question about why Excel underlines the entire cell for currency, but only the digits for percents. Well decode this problem in Episode 618.

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