A method and system wherein data elements in cells of a spreadsheet may be assigned character attribute information, such as font type, font size, bold, italics, underline, etc., wherein the character attribute information is referred to as a format. Format information is stored in a font palette table. Each cell in the spreadsheet is identified by a unique identifier that includes a row identifier and a column identifier. A direct cell format (DCF) table stores an index into the font palette in association with the unique cell identifier. When a cell is to be displayed, the system looks up the stored index in the direct cell format table, retrieves the format information from the font palette, and applies the format to the cell data elements. When a new format is created, the system determines if the format is already extant. If so, the index to the extant format is stored in the direct cell format table. A wild card character stored as a row identifier or column identifier indicates that the entire column or row, respectively, has the same format. Character format information is not stored in individual cells, and cells may share the same format combinations by merely setting the cell index to point to a desired format information in the font palette.