Microsoft Excel Keyboard Accelerator

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #3 -- Using the Keyboard Accelerator

This accelerator aims to allow you to access every command in the Excel using the keyboard. This function may not work for everybody, however, for people who don't usually use mouse, just like me, this knowledge would prove useful.

To do this, you would need to press and release the ALT key. You will notice then, there would be a ToolTips above each command, with an associated accelerator key.

Try this simple trick, could be more helpful than you might think.

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Adding and Removing Icon Quick Access

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #4 -- Adding/Removing an Icon to/from Quick Access

Quick Access Toolbar is another great feature of Microsfot Excel that will save you a few clicks to get the button you want. This works exactly the same like the Quick Launch next to your Windows Start button. And therfore, yes, you can customise it the way you like.

To add your favourite icons to the quick access toolbar:

1. Go to the icons you want to add.
2. Hover over the icon, and right click on it.
3. Choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

To remove it, do the step 1-2, and for step 3, choose Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

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Freezing Tables Panes in Excel

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #5 -- Freezing Panes in Excel Table

When creating a table with massive data is what you smoetimes (I have to do tables for my lab report), then keeping the headers/panes of the table visible is something you would want to see when you are scrolling down the data. Using Excel, this can be done simply.

Consider the table I have made in the video below, what you need to do, is to follow these steps.

1. Make sure you place the cursor on the first cell that you would NOT freeze.
2. From the VIEW ribbon, select Freeze Panes dropdown.
3. Then choose Freeze Panes.

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Creating In-Cell Bar Charts

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #6 -- Creating In-Cell Bar Charts with Data Bars

A Data Bar in Microsoft Excel is defined as a semitransparent swath of colour which start from the lief side of the cell. If the number in the cell is small, then the range of the coloured bar would be small and vice versa. The use of this in-cell bar chart is one alternative in presenting a table filled with numeric data. Watch my video below to get a better idea of what I have been saying.

Creating data bars is not that difficult, only requiring a few clicks.

1. Drag the mouse to select a range of numeric data. Take note that this data should be numbers of the same scale, ie. if you have a row of total, then don not include this row.
2. Go to Home Ribbon, then from the Style group, select the Conditional Formatting icon.
3. Choose Data Bars frin the drop down.

If you do not like the default set by the Excel, you can customise by following these steps:

1. From the same Conditional Formatting, shoose Manage Rules (the last option).
2. From the Show Formatting Rules drop-down, choose This Worksheet.
3. Click the Data Bar rule you want to customise.
4. Click the Edit button, and you can start customising it as you wish.

Hope that helps.

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How to minimise ribbon in Excel

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #2 -- Minimising Ribbon

My laptop has a very small screen that sometimes i had to hide my toolbar just to get a better view on my screen. Some of you may also have PC tablet that more or less would give you the same trouble. In the Microsfot Excel 2007 the RIBBON takes quite a big space honestly, and the good thing is that you can minimise it!! Watch the video to help you understand what I mean.

To recap, the 2 ways on how to minimise ribbon are as follow:

1. Press Crtl+F1.
2. Right Click the Ribbon and choose Minimize the Ribbon.

When the ribbon is minimised, you can click on a tab name and Excel will temporarily open that particular ribbon. After a command have been selected, the ribbon will be automatically return to minimised state.

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Customise Recent Documents Excel

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #1 -- Customise the Recent Documents List

Recent Documents List is what will appear when you click the Office Button on the top left of the workbook in the Microsoft Excel 2007. The list will display all the documents that have just been opened. You can choose to display up to 50 recent documents.

Customising the Recent Document List may come useful when you are sharing computer with others. You might even want to clear the recently used file list altogether. The video below will show you exactly how to do it.

So, in the nutshell, these are the simple steps you need to do to customise the size of your Recent Documents List:

1. Click the Office Icon.
2. Select Excel Options at the bottom.
3. Choose Advanced tab on the left.
4. Scroll down till you see Display.
5. Then you use the Show This Number of the Recent Documents spin button to increase the number to up to 50.

In addition, to the right of each list in the Recent Documents, there is a grey thumbtack. If you click the thumbtack, you will pin that file to the list. The files will appear in the Recent Documetns List until you unpin them. To upon, simply just click on the thumbtack again.

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