Microsoft Excel is a program that is helpful in many different ways. Keeping track of your monthly budget, business budget, projects for work or school are just a few ways you can use Excel. Here are a few tips that may help you with your next project when working in Microsoft Excel.
Hiding Rows
If you have a row that you want to keep, but don’t want it displayed on the screen or printed out you can choose to hide it. There will be a dark line indicating where the hidden row is.
- Select a cell in the row you want hidden.
- On the Format menu, choose Row.
- Choose Hide and the rows then disappear.
Un-hiding Rows
You can un-hide rows that you have hidden or un-hide rows in a worksheet sent to you.
- Locate the dark line indicating a hidden row.
- Select the row above and below the hidden row.
- On the Format menu choose Row.
- Choose Unhide and the rows will appear in your worksheet.
Re-size a Graphic
You can easily re-size graphics placed on your worksheet in Excel.
- Click on the graphic so that a box appears around it. The box is actually 8 squares, also called frame handles, surrounding the graphic.
- Click on one of the corner frame handles and drag it until the graphic is the desired size.
- Clicking and dragging on the other frame handles will change the size but distort the picture.
Set the appearance of Excel in the Taskbar
You may like to have only one task open no matter how many workbooks you have open, or you may prefer to have each workbook open in its own task.
- Click Office then Excel Options.
- Click Advanced on the left side of the dialog box.
- Scroll until you find the Display group among the options.
- Select the Show All Windows option you want in the Taskbar checkbox.
- Click OK.
Closing all open workbooks at once
There are many ways to close open workbooks in Excel, but if you have many workbooks open it can take a time. There is a shortcut to close them all at once.
- Display the File menu.
- Hold down the Shift key.
- Click on the Close All option that will appear on the menu.
- This will close all Open workbooks, unless they have not been saved. You will be prompted to Save them if necessary.
Find Line Breaks
You can search for line breaks in a cell in Excel.
- Press Ctrl + F to display the Find tab in the Find and Replace dialog box.
- Hold the Alt key and type 0010 on your numeric keypad. The character is there even though it may look like nothing is there.
- Click Find Next.
Inserting a Watermark
Inserting a watermark can serve many purposes. After you choose a watermark design and adjust it in a graphic program, you may add it to an Excel workbook.
- Select Sheet from the Format menu.
- Choose Background, which will display the Sheet Background dialog box.
- Locate and select the graphic or image you want to use by using the controls in the dialog box.
- Click on OK.
- The image will be displayed as a tile, repeatedly throughout the background of the workbook.
Printing colorful images on a black and white printer
Excel has many options when it comes to creating a colorful display of charts and graphs. All of this presentation is lost if you are using a black and white printer. You can get better results on your black and white printer by choosing a few options.
- Click on File and the Page Setup. A Page Setup dialog box will appear.
- Make sure the Sheet tab is selected.
- Check the Black and White box.
- Click OK.
Freezing Top and Bottom Rows
When working with numbers and totals you may need to see the totals in lower rows while still working at the top of the worksheet. You can have the bottom row displayed while you are at the top of the sheet.
- Choose New Window. A new window is created on the data in your worksheet.
- Choose Arrange from the Window menu.
- Make sure the Horizontal radio button is selected and then click OK.
- Adjust the vertical height of both windows so that your totals are showing in one window and the rest of the space is the worksheet you are currently working on.
Quickly insert a new Worksheet
You can add a new worksheet quickly without have to create a new one through the menu options.
- Press Shift + 11 and a new worksheet will be added.
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