There are two primary ways to create a new table style:

  1. You can duplicate an existing style and customize, or 2. You can create a new style from scratch In this video, I’m going to create a simple minimal style from scratch. When creating a new style, you may want to turn off gridlines, to make it easier to see formatting. To create a new style, open the table styles menu and select New style from the bottom. I’ll name this new style “simple”. Custom styles appear in the upper left of the Table styles menu. Excel will display the name when you hover over the thumbnail. However, notice that new styles are not applied when created. I need to apply the new style to my table as a second step. Once applied, the new style will be highlighted in the list. At this point, the table has no formatting, since the new style does not yet define any formatting. To edit the style, right-click and select Modify. You’ll see a long list of options in this window, but they can be grouped broadly into 4 categories.
  2. Formatting for the whole table 2. Formatting for the first, second, and last row and column 3. Formatting for the header row, and 4. Total row In this case, I want to define a light gray border for the entire table, so I need to edit Whole Table. Notice Whole Table now appears in bold, which indicates formatting had been defined. The mini preview window also shows the border now. When I click OK, the border is applied. I’ll repeat the process and add a fill to the header row. Notice Header now also appears in bold. And when I click OK, the header is formatted. Finally, I’ll add formatting for row banding. Here, I want to use “First row stripe”. When I click OK, the banding is applied. So that’s how to create a new style from scratch. To customize an existing style, follow this process:
  3. First duplicate the style and give it a name 2. Second, apply the style to your table 3. Third, make the changes you want You can use the Clear button to clear formatting in categories you don’t care about. As before, the custom style will appear in the upper left of the Table Styles menu.

Dave Bruns

Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.