General Information

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'General Information' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Arranging Windows
Got a lot of workbook windows you want to arrange? It's easy to do if you start by using the Arrange or Arrange Windows dialog boxes.

Changing the User Name
One of the many pieces of information that Excel keeps track of is your name. If you want to change your name for Excel's purposes (perhaps to add or remove a middle initial), then you need the information in this tip.

Finding Excel's Serial Number
Every installation of Excel includes a serial number that is generated by the installation program from the product key number. This serial number is required if you want to get technical support from Microsoft. Here's how to find the number.

Opening a New Workbook Window
If you need to look at different parts of the same worksheet at the same time, the answer is to create windows for your data. It is easy to do, as described in this tip.

Refusing to Work with Other Programs
Do you want Excel to ignore other applications that may be running on your computer? You can configure the program to do just that.

Status Bar Doesn't Show Sum of Selected Range
When you select a range of cells, Excel normally displays the sum of those selected cells on the status bar. If the sum no longer appears, here's how you can get it back.

Stopping Help from Using Online Resources
Excel relies upon the Internet to grab help information. If you don't want Excel to seek help online, you can configure the program using the information in this tip.

Turning Off Link Updating
If you have links in your workbook to data in other workbooks, you may want to control whether Excel updates those links or not. Here's how to find the settings that Excel uses for that purpose.

More Information

The following are additional topics related to the subject of 'General Information'. A bracketed number after the topic indicates how many articles are related to that subject.