Bold Your Headings

Apparently this is not widely known, but you should always bold the headings in your tables.

Then when you use Format as Table (Ctrl + t) on the Home ribbon tab the header row will be correctly identified.

This also applies to the Ctrl + Shift + L shortcut to insert the filter drop downs.

It also applies to the ranges used for charts.

In general ALWAYS BOLD your headings – it is something Excel looks for.

Ctrl + b is the bold shortcut.

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2 thoughts on “Bold Your Headings”

  1. Great Tip! I never knew this.

    I played around a bit and have a few other things that help Excel recognize the top row as headers. If the first row but not the second exhibits any of these, Excel will know that the first row is used for headers.

    Formatting: Bold, Italic, Underlined, Different Font Color, Larger Font Size
    Style: Upper Case (second row Proper or Lower Case) or Proper Case (second row Lower Case)
    Cell Border: Border below first row but not above

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