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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