Font and text styling in Google Sheets - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

Sample text data with style labels to demonstrate font and text styling in Google Sheets.

Cell	Value
A1	Hello
A2	World
A3	Google Sheets
B1	Bold
B2	Italic
B3	Underline

Formula Trace

=ARRAYFORMULA(IF(B1:B3="Bold", TEXT(A1:A3, "@"), IF(B1:B3="Italic", TEXT(A1:A3, "@"), IF(B1:B3="Underline", TEXT(A1:A3, "@"), A1:A3))))

Step 1: B1:B3

Step 2: A1:A3

Step 3: IF(B1:B3="Bold", TEXT(A1:A3, "@"), ...)

Step 4: IF(B2="Italic", TEXT(A2, "@"), ...)

Step 5: IF(B3="Underline", TEXT(A3, "@"), A3)

Step 6: ARRAYFORMULA(...)

Cell Reference Map

    A             B
1 | Hello         | Bold      
2 | World         | Italic    
3 | Google Sheets | Underline

Cells A1:A3 contain text. Cells B1:B3 contain style labels that guide manual font styling.

Result

    A             B
1 | Hello         | Bold      
2 | World         | Italic    
3 | Google Sheets | Underline

The text in column A is shown. The user applies font styles Bold, Italic, and Underline manually based on column B labels.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the formula return in the cells where it is applied?

A Text converted to bold automatically

B Text converted to italic automatically

C The original text without any style changes

D Text converted to underline automatically

Key Result

Use IF and ARRAYFORMULA to conditionally process ranges, but font styles must be applied manually in Google Sheets.