A.2. The Office Assistant
The Office Assistant is an interesting idea gone horribly wrongso wrong, that Microsoft itself now downplays the feature. The company even went so far as to create a marketing campaign that featured a bitter, lonely Clippy (the most infamous Office Assistant) trying to find new work. The idea behind this ad was that Excel was so easy to use that the Office Assistant no longer had a useful role. A more honest assessment would point out that the Office Assistant never really provided much help at all (aside from a temporary diversion from other spreadsheet chores).
If you haven't yet learned about the Office Assistant, all you need to know is that it's an animated character that floats at the side of your window, waiting to offer suggestions or point out glitches as you work. The problem is that not only does the Office Assistant have no real character (it speaks in the same dry computerese as the Excel help files), it also doesn't tell you anything genuinely useful.
If this warning hasn't deterred you, you can display the Office Assistant by choosing Help Show the Office Assistant. An animated paper clip, named Clippy, (shown in Figure A-5) springs into view.
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Once the Office Assistant is visible, it occasionally offers vague tips or comments. For example, if you select Insert Chart, Clippy offers some basic charting advice. If Clippy doesn't have a light bulb showing, you can click him to show a yellow bubble, which poses the question "What would you like to do?" You can enter some search keywords and click OK to perform the exact same search that you would using the Ask a Question text box.
To change some of the Office Assistant settings, right-click Clippy and choose Options. The Office Assistant dialog box appears. Using the Gallery tab (shown in Figure A-6), you can choose a new Office Assistant.
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The Options tab includes a series of settings that configure what types of information the Office Assistant shows and how it behaves (see Figure A-7).
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To hide the Office Assistant temporarily (until the next time it has a message for you), right-click it and choose Hide or choose Help Hide the Office Assistant. To dispel the Office Assistant for good, right-click it and choose Options. Then, turn off the checkmark next to the "Use the Office Assistant" checkbox.