Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #266, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!

A big thank you to this week's sponsors who help keep this newsletter free for you to read:

EQUALS Join the spreadsheet revolution with Equals! Effortlessly connect your spreadsheet to live data, making report building and automation a breeze. Experience the next generation of spreadsheets with built-in database connections, versioning, and collaboration. Try It For Free

SHEET2SITE Turn your Google Sheet into a beautiful website! Sheet2Site lets you create websites for product lists, stock-lists, job listings, employee directories and any other list of data you have. No coding needed, just connect your Google Sheet and customize the design. Use the code collins-x-s2s-623ff to get 15% off. Get 15% off today

_______

➜ Google Sheets Tip #266: Add branding to your Google Sheets

Here are 7 tips to brand your Google Sheets and make them more professional:

Add your logo

Go to the menu: Insert > Image > Insert image in cell

Insert your company logo in the top corner of your client Sheets to make them instantly recognizable as your brand.

Use custom color palette to match

Whenever you add colors (to fonts, backgrounds, borders, etc.) there is an option to add custom colors.

Find out the RGB code or HEX code for colors of your organization and use them. You only need to do it once in the Sheet and it makes a big difference.

Change your font to match

Don't settle for boring Arial. Change the font to match your brand!

Hide the gridlines

Go to the menu: View > Show > Gridlines

and toggle the gridlines on or off.

It's one of my favorite ways to make a sheet look more professional, although it's only recommended for certain sheets, e.g. dashboards or purely informational sheets. I would not recommend it for sheets containing datasets.

Use borders creatively

I love to add borders around a logo or underneath headings. They break up a Sheet and make it easier to see the different sections of your Sheet.

Use background colors creatively

In addition to using borders creatively, think about using background colors in cells creatively.

For example, in the image below, I've added a narrow row and column that I colored dark grey to look like a shadow.

This is just one way to use background colors to make your work "pop" more.

Add a front sheet

Saving the best to last, I really advocate adding a branded "front sheet" to your important spreadsheets.

A well constructed front sheet will seriously impress your boss or clients.

​We covered front sheets in Sheets Tip 238.

---

And voilà!

Here's an example of a branded Sheet:

(The text is just a placeholder.)

Even more formatting tips

​How to make a table look great in Google Sheets​

​Create custom table headers with text rotation​

_______

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. How we talk in Britain. No, really.​