Excel allows you to choose from several formatting style choices for your cell contents.

To change the style you can choose from the icons on the formatting toolbar

OR

Go to Format/Style and click Modify. Then choose a category and choose a type to specify details like decimal places.

To sort data choose a column or  selected cells and click the Sort Ascending or Sort Desending icons.

example: have Excel put in the dashes for Social Security number in for you.