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Many items that you see when you open a new worksheet (also known as a spreadsheet) are standard to most Microsoft Office programs. However, the following list illustrates a few elements that are specific to a spreadsheet program. These include:
NOTE
Each worksheet has 256 columns and 65,536 rows, for a total of 16,777,216 cells in each worksheet.
Edit line. The edit line consists of two parts :
Excel contains several different task panes, each of which appears when you use various Excel tasks . One task pane assists you in creating new worksheets, whereas another task pane helps you add clip art to your worksheet.
By default, Excel displays the Getting Started task pane. The Getting Started task pane lists common features associated with opening an existing worksheet or creating a new worksheet. As you select different Excel features, the task pane may change.
While the task pane can be very helpful, it also uses up valuable screen space. You can close the task pane at any time and redisplay it whenever you want it back.
The task pane will reappear automatically when you select an Excel feature that uses the task pane. You can, however, redisplay the task pane at any time.
NOTE
For the purposes of this book, most screens will appear without the task pane, unless a feature that uses the task pane is being shown.
All Windows-based applications use menus to list items appropriate to your program. Excel is no different. As you click a menu choice, you see the options available under that menu. Some menus have submenus which list additional choices from which you can select. A menu option lighter in color than the other options is said to be grayed out and means that particular choice is unavailable at the moment. Menu options become grayed out when they are not applicable to your current selection.
Excel includes personalized menus. When the menu is first accessed, only the most common features are displayed. Notice the down-pointing double arrow at the bottom of the menu. This arrow indicates that additional menu features are available. If you pause the mouse over the top item on the menu bar or move it down to the double arrow, the menu will expand to include all available features for that menu.
As you use the personalized menus, the features you use most often will appear at the top of the menu.
NOTE
Click on the menu name (such as View) to close a menu without making any selection.
If you find you don't like the personalized menus, you can turn the feature off and all options will automatically appear when you select a menu.
Shortcut menus contain a limited number of commands. The commands you see on a shortcut menu are relevant to what you are doing at the time you open the shortcut menu. Click the right mouse button (called a right-click ) to open a shortcut menu. Be sure the mouse pointer is in the shape of a white cross before right-clicking to open a shortcut menu.
NOTE
Press the Esc key or click anywhere outside the shortcut menu to close the menu without making a selection.
Along the top and bottom of the Excel screen, you see several different toolbars. Toolbars are small icons or buttons that help you access commonly used Excel features without digging through the menus. Excel includes over 20 toolbars to assist you.
When you first use Excel, you see three toolbars displayed by default. The Standard and Formatting toolbars display side-by-side along the top of the Excel screen, and the Drawing toolbar displays along the bottom of the screen.
If you look closely, you can see that the toolbar buttons are grouped into related activities. For example, the Alignment buttons (left, center, and right) are together, and options that relate to files, such as saving or opening, are grouped together. You'll learn about using these buttons in later chapters.
Most people find the Standard and Formatting toolbars difficult to use when displayed side-by-side, so you may want to separate them so one is on top of the other, which makes all the tools on these bars much easier to access.
Most toolbars are docked at the top or bottom of the screen, but if a toolbar is not located in a favorable position for you to access, move it to any position on the screen. Sometimes, you may accidentally move a toolbar into the middle of the screen, blocking your view of your worksheet. It's very easy to move a toolbar into any position.
NOTE
Although you probably won't want to, you can move the menu bar with the same method.
NOTE
To put a toolbar back to the normal position, press and hold the mouse button over the toolbar title bar and drag it into the desired position, usually at the top of the screen.
You can hide or display any toolbar. This can be very helpful if a particular toolbar is using valuable screen space. For example, if you are not doing any drawing, you may want to hide the drawing toolbar.
Currently displayed toolbars have a check mark next to them. Toolbars without a check mark are not currently displayed.
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