Extension: Research Career Paths

In this video, you will learn how to use formatting tools to make the information in your spreadsheet clearer and easier to understand.

Formatting can help highlight important data, making it easier to locate what you’re looking for.

In this extension, you will: Add borders to your table, Add shading to cells, Change the text color in cells, And freeze a row.

Borders in a spreadsheet can serve a variety of purposes.

They can be used to represent the outer edge of a table, separate sections within a table from each other, or separate individual cells from one another.

Select the cells you want to place a border around.

Then choose the type of border you want and the line thickness.

Include more than one type of border in a spreadsheet to further organize the information.

Shading and text color can also be used to highlight important information or differentiate types of data from one another.

To begin, select cells that contain important information and shade them.

You might choose to shade a row of headers to make them stand out, for example.

Shade the rows in between data sets for different careers to help visually separate the information.

Now change the color of any text you’d like to emphasize.

You might use a different text color for totals or important labels to call the reader’s attention to them, for example.

You can also bold text to highlight it further.

Freeze rows to make your headers visible even when you scroll down through the spreadsheet.

This is useful if you want to add multiple sets of career research to your spreadsheet.

Use formatting tools in your spreadsheet to make it easier for you to organize and highlight important information, both for yourself and for others.

Now, it’s your turn: Add borders to your table, Add shading to cells, Change the text color in cells, And freeze a row.

In this extension, you will create a chart to compare the job outlook for the careers you researched.

A chart can help you with your career exploration by enabling you to more easily visualize the information.

You will use the Chart feature in Google Sheets to create your chart.

In this extension, you will: Insert a chart and enter data ranges, Select a chart format, Give your chart a title and label the bars, Customize your chart, And move and resize your chart.

To begin, select a random cell below all of your data in your sheet.

Then insert a chart.

To enter data into your chart, use the chart editor.

First, select a data range.

Add the letter and number of the cell which shows the average projected growth for the first career on your sheet.

Add data ranges to show projected growth percentages from any additional careers listed on your sheet.

Your chart will automatically be populated with this data.

Use the chart editor to select from a variety of different chart formats.

Choose the format that will best illustrate the data you want to present.

Give your chart a title that clearly describes the information it shows and bold it.

Then label the bars with the corresponding career titles.

Now customize your chart to make it look exactly the way you want.

For example, you can change the background color and the font of the text in your chart.

Now move and resize the chart on your spreadsheet as you prefer.

You’ve now created a chart that will help you more easily visualize and understand the job outlook for the careers you’ve researched.

As you add more careers to your spreadsheet, you can add their data to your chart, as well.

Now, it’s your turn: Insert a chart and enter data ranges, Select a chart format, Give your chart a title and label the bars, Customize your chart, And move and resize your chart.

In this extension, you will add a sheet to summarize the results of the data you researched about different careers.

This sheet will make your research easier to understand and evaluate.

In this extension, you will: Add a new sheet and name both sheets, Copy and paste your original column headers into your new sheet, Copy and paste your career titles into your new sheet, Copy and paste the averages data into your new sheet, And format the new sheet.

To begin, add a new sheet.

Give each sheet a brief, clear name to describe the information it contains.

Copy the headers from your original Career Research table and paste them on the next sheet.

Copy the name of each career you researched and paste it under the “careers” header in your new sheet.

Now copy the rows that contain the averages of the data for each career and select the “paste special” option to paste them into your new sheet.

“Paste special” gives you control of how content is displayed when pasted from the clipboard.

It allows you to paste text without copying formulas or formatting.

Use the “paste special” option and paste in only the cell values.

Finally, update the formatting of these rows by copying and pasting the formatting from your original sheet.

You’ve now created a sheet that makes it easier to compare the different career paths you’ve chosen to research.

As you add more careers and new research categories to your original research sheet, you can add your final results to this sheet, as well.

Now, it’s your turn: Add a new sheet and name both sheets, Copy and paste your original column headers into your new sheet, Copy and paste your career titles into your new sheet, Copy and paste the averages data into your new sheet, And format the new sheet.