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Tips, Tricks, and Answers

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Accessing the Formula Bar without the Mouse. Hate to take your hands off the keyboard while working on a worksheet? Here's one way to activate the Formula bar without the need of using the mouse.

Adding an Equal Sign Tool. In older versions of Excel (97 and 2000) the program had an equal sign tool that appeared right next to the Formula bar. If you miss this tool, you can add it to the Quick Access toolbar by following the steps in this tip.

Changing Excel’s Cell Reference Notation. Excel 2007 supports two different types of cell reference notation. The notation method is adequate for most people, but you may need to make a change because of your familiarity with other spreadsheet programs.

Changing Undo Levels. Excel maintains a record of most of the commands you execute so that you can later "undo" those commands, if desired. It is helpful to understand the way that Excel maintains this list of commands and how it can be changed.

Changing Worksheet Gridline Color. Want the gridlines in your worksheet to be a different color? You aren't limited to stodgy black; Excel lets you make them just about any color you want. Here's how to make the change.

Correcting Pale Shading of Selected Cells. Does the pale coloring scheme used to mark selected cells by Excel 2007 drive you nuts? You aren't alone. Here's an idea of what you can do to reduce the frustration.

Disabling ScreenTips. ScreenTips are one of those artifacts of Microsoft trying to make Excel be overly helpful. If the ScreenTips bother you, you can turn them off by following this tip.

Disabling the AutoFill Feature. AutoFill is a great editing tool that comes in particularly handy when you are first creating a worksheet. You may, at some point, want to turn off the feature. This tip shows how you can do this.

Displaying Page Breaks. Page breaks can be added to a worksheet manually or automatically. If you want to see where Excel places page breaks, you'll want to pay attention to this configuration tip.

Displaying Page Breaks in a Worksheet. Excel uses two types of page breaks, and you can display them in your workbook by making a configuration change in the program. This tip shows the setting you need to change.

Getting Rid of Error Checking. A little green triangle in the corner of a cell means that Excel thinks there is an error with the cell contents. If those triangles bother you, here's how to turn them off.

Manually Calculating Worksheets. If your worksheet becomes slow and sluggish whenever you make an edit, it could be because Excel's recalculation is taking too long. What to do? Switch to manual calculation.

Setting Rules for Error Checking. Excel can check the data and formulas in your worksheet to see if it detects any errors. The rules used for this checking can be modified, if you desire.

Specifying Enter Key Behavior. When you are entering data in a worksheet and you press Enter, it is the signal to Excel that you are done with the current cell. What happens next depends on a setting you make that indicates which way you want Excel to move the selection.

Specifying Where Excel Saves AutoRecover Files. Excel, by default, periodically writes information to AutoRecover files that can help protect your data in case Excel is ended abnormally. You can specify where you want these AutoRecover files stored by using the information in this tip.

Unwanted Files Loading when Starting Excel. Imagine how painful it would be if every time you started Excel it tried to load all the files in your root directory? That is what was happening to Stephen, and here's how to fix it.

Zooming or Scrolling with the Mouse Wheel. Excel allows your mouse's center wheel to be used for two different purposes. Here's how to throw the switch that indicates which purpose should be used.