How to add cell padding in Excel 2010?

That's an 'indent'. Cell padding is exactly the same thing as page margins, but at the cell level. Excel does not currently support this feature although it is supported in Word tables. Go figure.

You can cheat and apply a border to all 4 sides of the cell that is the same color as the cell background. Do this in the Home tab - Format (in the cells group) - Borders, or select the cells and right click, then choose "format cells" at the bottom of the dropdown.

Make sure you click the border icons on the right AFTER you set the border color and width. Even if they are already highlighted, they do not apply the color unless they are clicked again after you select them and set the border color.

1. Select the cell range and increase the fonts size several points.
2. Auto fit the column width and row height.
3. Set the font size back to the original size.

This takes a few steps, but it gets the look I want without the padding feature. I also like to center the type vertically once this is done.

Note: I'm on Excel 2007, but I would be surprised if this doesn't work.

Select the cells, right click, select Format Cells.

Move to the Alignment tab, set the Horizontal value to Left (Indent) and adjust the Indent value as desired.

There should be two alignment buttons on the ribbon as well (that increase or decrease the indent), they look like this: