The Excel 2019 User Experience

Going Backstage

To the immediate left of the Home tab on the Ribbon right below the AutoSave button and Quick Access toolbar, you find the File button.

When you select File, the Backstage view opens. This view contains a menu similar to the one shown in Figure 1-3. When you open the Backstage view with the Info option selected (Alt+FI), Excel displays at-a-glance stats about the workbook file you have open and active in the program.

This information panel is divided into two panes. The pane on the left contains large buttons that enable you to modify the workbook’s protection status, check the document before publishing, manage its versions, and determine which worksheets in the file are shown when the Excel workbook file is viewed in a web browser. The pane on the right contains a list of fields detailing the workbook’s various document Properties, some of which you can change (such as Title, Tags, Categories, Author, and Last Modified By), and many of which you can’t (such as Size, Last Modified, Created, and so forth).

Below the Info option, you find the commands (New, Open, Save, Save As, Save as Adobe PDF, Print, Share, Export, Publish, and Close) that you commonly need for working with Excel workbook files. Near the bottom, the File tab contains an Account option that, when selected, displays an Account panel in the Backstage view. This panel displays user, connection, and Microsoft Office account information. Below the Account menu item, you find options to give Microsoft feedback about Excel 2019 as well as options that you can select to change the program’s many default settings.

Select the Open option to open an Excel workbook you’ve previously worked on for more editing. When you select Open, Excel displays a panel with a list of all the workbook files recently opened in the program. To re-open a particular file for editing, all you do is click its filename in this list.

To close the Backstage view and return to the normal worksheet view, you select the Back button at the very top of the menu or simply press Esc on your keyboard.

Using the Excel Ribbon

The Ribbon (shown in Figure 1-4) groups the most commonly used options needed to perform particular types of Excel tasks.

To do this, the Ribbon uses the following components:

• Tabs for each of Excel’s main tasks that bring together and display all the commands commonly needed to perform that core task.
• Groups that organize related command buttons into subtasks normally performed as part of the tab’s larger core task.
• Command buttons within each group that you select to perform a particular action or to open a gallery from which you can click a particular thumbnail. Note: Many command buttons on certain tabs of the Ribbon are organized into mini-toolbars with related settings.
• Dialog Box launcher in the lower-right corner of certain groups that opens a dialog box containing a bunch of additional options you can select. (Note that you can mouse over this button to display a preview of the dialog box.)

To display more of the Worksheet area in the program window, collapse the Ribbon so that only the names of its tabs are displayed by simply clicking the Collapse the Ribbon button on the right side above the vertical scroll bar. You can also double-click (or double-tap on a touchscreen) any one of the Ribbon’s tabs, or press Ctrl+F1 on your keyboard. To once again pin the Ribbon in place so that all the command buttons on each of its tabs are always displayed in the program window, double-click (or double-tap) any one of the tabs, or press Ctrl+F1 a second time. You can also do this by selecting the Pin the Ribbon button (whose icon looks just like a pin) that replaces the Unpin the Ribbon button and appears whenever you temporarily activate a tab to use its command buttons.

When you work in Excel with the Ribbon collapsed, the Ribbon expands each time you activate one of its tabs to show its command buttons, but that tab stays open only until you select one of the command buttons or select an element in the worksheet. The moment you select a command button, Excel immediately minimizes the Ribbon again and just displays its tabs. Note that you can also use the Show Tabs and Show Tabs and Commands options on the Ribbon Display Options button’s drop-down menu to switch between collapsing the Ribbon to its tabs and restoring its commands again.

If you really want to maximize the Worksheet area in Excel 2019, you can use its Auto-Hide Ribbon command to remove the display of the Quick Access toolbar plus the names of the Ribbon’s tabs and commands. To do this, click or tap the Ribbon Display Options button (to the immediate left of the Minimize button in the upper-right corner of the screen) and select Auto-Hide Ribbon command at the top of the drop-down menu. With this mode turned on, you simply need to click or tap anywhere in the blank area of the screen above the Formula bar to display the tab names and their commands.

Keeping tabs on the Ribbon

The first time you launch a new workbook in Excel 2019, its Ribbon contains the following tabs from left to right:

• Home tab with the command buttons normally used when creating, formatting, and editing a spreadsheet, arranged into the Clipboard, Font, Alignment, Number, Styles, Cells, and Editing groups.
• Insert tab with the command buttons normally used when adding particular elements (including graphics, PivotTables, charts, hyperlinks, and headers and footers) to a spreadsheet, arranged into the Tables, Illustrations, Add-ins, Charts, Tours, Sparklines, Filter, Links, Text, and Symbols groups.
• Draw tab with commands for changing various pen and ink options, arranged in Touch, Pens, Convert, and Replay groups when running Excel 2019 on a Windows 10 tablet or computer equipped with a touchscreen or digital ink pad.
• Page Layout tab with the command buttons normally used when preparing a spreadsheet for printing or re-ordering graphics on the sheet, arranged into the Themes, Page Setup, Scale to Fit, Sheet Options, and Arrange groups.
• Formulas tab with the command buttons normally used when adding formulas and functions to a spreadsheet or checking a worksheet for formula errors, arranged into the Function Library, Defined Names, Formula Auditing, and Calculation groups. Note: This tab also contains a Solutions group when you activate certain add-in programs, such as Analysis ToolPak and Euro Currency Tools. See Chapter 12 for more on using Excel add-in programs.
• Data tab with the command buttons normally used when importing, querying, outlining, and subtotaling the data placed into a worksheet’s data list, arranged into the Get & Transform Data, Queries & Connections, Sort & Filter, Data Tools, Forecast, and Outline groups. Note: This tab also contains an Analysis group when you activate add-ins, such as Analysis ToolPak and Solver. See Chapter 12 for more on Excel add-ins.
• Review tab with the command buttons normally used when proofing, protecting, and marking up a spreadsheet for review by others, arranged into the Proofing, Accessiblity, Insights, Language, Comments, and Protect groups. Note: This tab also contains an Ink group with a sole Hide Ink button when you’re running Office 2019 on a device with a touchscreen, such as a tablet or a computer equipped with a digital ink tablet.
• View tab with the command buttons normally used when changing the display of the Worksheet area and the data it contains, arranged into the Workbook Views, Show, Zoom, Window, and Macros groups.
• Help tab with commands for getting online help or support using Excel 2019 or to give you feedback, arranged into a Help & Support and Community group.

In addition to these standard tabs, Excel has an optional Developer tab that you can add to the Ribbon if you do a lot of work with macros and XML files. See Chapter 12 for more on the Developer tab. If you are running a version of Excel 2019 with the Inquire and PowerPivot COM Add-ins installed, an Inquire and Power Pivot tab appears near the end of the Ribbon.

Although these standard tabs are the ones you always see on the Ribbon when it’s displayed in Excel, they aren’t the only things that can appear in this area. Excel can display contextual tools when you’re working with a particular object that you select in the worksheet, such as a graphic image you’ve added or a chart or PivotTable you’ve created. The name of the contextual tool for the selected object appears immediately above the tab or tabs associated with the tools.

For example, Figure 1-5 shows a worksheet after you click the embedded chart to select it. As you can see, doing this adds the contextual tool called Chart Tools to the very end of the Ribbon. The Chart Tools contextual tool has its two tabs: Design (selected) and Format. Note, too, that the command buttons on the Design tab are arranged into the groups Chart Layouts, Chart Styles, Data, Type, and Location.

The moment you deselect the object (usually by clicking somewhere outside the object’s boundaries), the contextual tool for that object and all its tabs immediately disappear from the Ribbon, leaving only the regular tabs — Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review, View, and Help — displayed.

Customizing the Quick Access toolbar

When you start using Excel 2019, the Quick Access toolbar contains only the following few buttons:

• AutoSave that automatically saves your work as you make additional changes to an Excel workbook file that you’ve manually saved at least one time (see Save, the next item in this list) on your OneDrive or SharePoint Online storage in the cloud. To disable this feature, click the On button to the immediate right of AutoSave to change it to Off, in which case all saving all future Excel edits is strictly up to you.
• Save to save any changes made to the current workbook using the same filename, file format, and location
• Undo to undo the last editing, formatting, or layout change you made
• Redo to reapply the previous editing, formatting, or layout change that you just removed with the Undo button

The Quick Access toolbar is very customizable because Excel makes it easy to add any Ribbon command to it. Moreover, you’re not restricted to adding buttons for just the commands on the Ribbon; you can add any Excel command you want to the toolbar, even the obscure ones that don’t rate an appearance on any of its tabs.

By default, the Quick Access toolbar appears above the Ribbon tabs. To display the toolbar beneath the Ribbon immediately above the Formula bar, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button (the drop-down button to the right of the toolbar with a horizontal bar above a down-pointing triangle) and then click Show Below the Ribbon on its drop-down menu. You will definitely want to make this change if you start adding more than just a few extra buttons to the toolbar. That way, the growing Quick Access toolbar doesn’t start crowding the name of the current workbook that appears to the toolbar’s right.

Adding Ribbon commands

To add a Ribbon command to the Quick Access toolbar, open the command button’s shortcut menu (right-click with a mouse or tap and hold on a touchscreen) and then select the Add to Quick Access Toolbar menu item. Excel then immediately adds the selected Ribbon command button to the very end of the Quick Access toolbar, immediately in front of the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button.

If you want to move the command button to a new location on the Quick Access toolbar or group it with other buttons on the toolbar, select the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button followed by the More Commands option near the bottom of its drop-down menu.

Excel then opens the Excel Options dialog box with the Quick Access Toolbar tab selected (similar to the one shown in Figure 1-6). On the right side of the dialog box, Excel shows all the buttons added to the Quick Access toolbar. The order in which they appear from left to right on the toolbar corresponds to the top-down order in the list box.

To reposition a particular button on the toolbar, select it in the list box on the right and then select either the Move Up button (the one with the black triangle pointing upward) or the Move Down button (the one with the black triangle pointing downward) until the button is promoted or demoted to the desired position on the toolbar.

You can add a pair of vertical separators to the toolbar to group related buttons. To do this, select the <Separator> option in the list box on the left followed by the Add button. Then, select the Move Up or Move Down button to position one of the two separators at the beginning of the group and the other at the end.

When you finish adding and positioning your command buttons, select OK in the Excel Options dialog box to return to the Excel screen with the new buttons displayed on the Quick Access toolbar. To later remove a button you’ve added, open the Quick Access toolbar’s shortcut menu (right-click or tap and hold on a touchscreen) and then select the Remove from Quick Access Toolbar option.

Having fun with the Formula bar

The Formula bar displays the cell address (determined by a column letter[s] followed by a row number) and the contents of the current cell. For example, cell A1 is the first cell of each worksheet at the intersection of column A and row 1; cell XFD1048576 is the last cell of each worksheet at the intersection of column XFD and row 1048576. The type of entry you make determines the contents of the current cell: text or numbers, for example, if you enter a heading or particular value, or the details of a formula, if you enter a calculation.

The Formula bar has three parts:

• Name box: The left-most drop-down button that displays the address of the current cell address or its range name (if you’ve assigned one as described in Chapter 6).
• Formula bar buttons: The three buttons to the immediate right of the vertical ellipsis (used to narrow or widen the Name box). These buttons are Cancel (with an X), Enter (with a check mark), and Insert Function (with fx).When you start making or editing a cell entry, the Cancel (an X) and Enter (a check mark) buttons become active.
• Cell contents: The third area to the immediate right of the Insert Function button takes up the rest of the bar and expands as necessary to display really long cell entries that won’t fit in the normal area.

The cell contents portion of the Formula bar is important because it always shows you the contents of the cell even when the worksheet does not. (When you’re dealing with a formula, Excel displays only the calculated result in the cell in the worksheet and not the formula by which that result is derived.) Additionally, you can edit the contents of the cell in this area at any time. Similarly, when the cell contents area is blank, you know that the cell is empty as well.

What to do in the Worksheet area

The Worksheet area is where most of the Excel spreadsheet action takes place because it’s the place that displays the cells of the current worksheet, and it’s right inside the cells that you do all your spreadsheet data entry and formatting, not to mention a great deal of your editing.

To enter or edit data in a cell, that cell must be current. Excel indicates that a cell is current in three ways:

• The cell cursor — the dark green border surrounding the cell’s entire perimeter — appears in the cell.
• The address or range name assigned to the cell appears in the Name box of the Formula bar.
• The cell’s column letter(s) and row number are shaded in the column headings and row headings that appear at the top and left of the Worksheet area, respectively.

Moving around the worksheet

An Excel worksheet contains far too many columns and rows for all a worksheet’s cells to be displayed at one time, regardless of how large your computer’s monitor screen is or how high the screen resolution. (After all, we’re talking 17,179,869,184 cells total!) Therefore, Excel offers many methods for moving the cell cursor around the worksheet to the cell where you want to enter new data or edit existing data:

• Click the desired cell — assuming that the cell is displayed within the section of the sheet visible in the Worksheet area — either by clicking it with your mouse or tapping it on your touchscreen.
• Click the Name box, type the address of the desired cell, and press the Enter key.
• Press F5 to open the Go To dialog box, type the address of the desired cell into its Reference text box, and then click OK.
• Use the cursor keys, as shown in Table 1-1 to move the cell cursor to the desired cell.
• Use the horizontal and vertical buttons located at the ends of the scroll bars found at the bottom and right edge of the Worksheet area to move to the part of the worksheet that contains the desired cell and then click or tap the cell to put the cell cursor in it.

Keystroke	Where the Cell Cursor Moves
→ or Tab	Cell to the immediate right.
← or Shift+Tab	Cell to the immediate left.
↑	Cell up one row.
↓	Cell down one row.
Home	Cell in Column A of the current row.
Ctrl+Home	First cell (A1) of the worksheet.
Ctrl+End or End, Home	Cell in the worksheet at the intersection of the last column that has data in it and the last row that has data in it (that is, the last cell of the so-called active area of the worksheet).
Page Up	Cell one full screen up in the same column.
Page Down	Cell one full screen down in the same column.
Alt+Page Up	One full screen to the left (assuming that the cell cursor is not in the left-most column of the worksheet)
Alt+Page Down	One full screen to the right (assuming that the cell cursor is not in the right-most column of the worksheet)
Ctrl+→ or End, →	First occupied cell to the right in the same row that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very end of the row.
Ctrl+← or End, ←	First occupied cell to the left in the same row that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very beginning of the row.
Ctrl+↑ or End, ↑	First occupied cell above in the same column that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very top of the column.
Ctrl+↓ or End, ↓	First occupied cell below in the same column that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very bottom of the column.
Ctrl+Page Down	The cell pointer’s location in the next worksheet of that workbook.
Ctrl+Page Up	The cell pointer’s location in the previous worksheet of that workbook.

Note: In the case of those keystrokes that use arrow keys, you must either use the arrows on the cursor keypad or else have the Num Lock disengaged on the numeric keypad of your keyboard.

KEYSTROKE SHORTCUTS FOR MOVING THE CELL CURSOR

Excel offers a wide variety of keystrokes for moving the cell cursor to a new cell. When you use one of these keystrokes, the program automatically scrolls a new part of the worksheet into view, if this is required to move the cell pointer. In Table 1-1, I summarize these keystrokes, including how far each one moves the cell pointer from its starting position.

The keystrokes that combine the Ctrl or End key with an arrow key listed in Table 1-1 are among the most helpful for moving quickly from one edge to the other in large tables of cell entries or for moving from table to table in a section of a worksheet with many blocks of cells.

When you use Ctrl and an arrow key to move from edge to edge in a table or between tables in a worksheet, you hold down Ctrl while you press one of the four arrow keys (indicated by the + symbol in keystrokes, such as Ctrl+→).

When you use End and an arrow-key alternative, you must press and then release the End key before you press the arrow key (indicated by the comma in keystrokes, such as End, →). Pressing and releasing the End key causes the End Mode indicator to appear on the Status bar. This is your sign that Excel is ready for you to press one of the four arrow keys.

Because you can keep the Ctrl key depressed while you press the different arrow keys that you need to use, the Ctrl-plus-arrow-key method provides a more fluid method for navigating blocks of cells than the End-then-arrow-key method.

You can use the Scroll Lock key to “freeze” the position of the cell pointer in the worksheet so that you can scroll new areas of the worksheet in view with keystrokes, such as PgUp (Page Up) and PgDn (Page Down), without changing the cell pointer’s original position (in essence, making these keystrokes work in the same manner as the scroll bars).

After engaging Scroll Lock, when you scroll the worksheet with the keyboard, Excel does not select a new cell while it brings a new section of the worksheet into view. To “unfreeze” the cell pointer when scrolling the worksheet via the keyboard, you just press the Scroll Lock key again.

TIPS ON USING THE TOUCH KEYBOARD

If you’re running Excel 2019 on a device that lacks any kind of physical keyboard, you need to open the Touch keyboard and use it to input your spreadsheet data.

To open the standard Touch keyboard, simply tap the Touch Keyboard button that appears on the right side of the Windows 10 taskbar. Doing this displays the Touch keyboard, docked at the bottom of the Excel program window, as shown in Figure 1-7.

Excel supports undocking the standard Touch keyboard so that it floats within the Excel 2019 program window as well as the selection of a different type of keyboard or supported language. To make any of these changes, tap the Touch Keyboard Settings button (the one with the cog on top of the keyboard icon) followed by one of the following options on its pop-up menu:

• Standard Keyboard to switch back to the standard docked Touch Keyboard after changing to one of the other styles
• Split Keyboard to change to split-keyboard arrangement that separates the letter keys into two banks of three rows starting with QWERT in the top row on the left and YUIOP in the top row on the right
• Mobile Keyboard to change to a much smaller floating version of the standard Touch keyboard that you can drag to reposition anywhere in the Excel program window
• Inking Keyboard to switch to a keyboard that enables you to write out your Excel entries and edits with your pen (or finger) and then enter them by tapping its Enter key
• Expanded Keyboard to switch to an expanded version of the standard Windows Touch keyboard that supports the Windows, Alt, and function keys as well as adds an Escape, Delete, Tab, and Caps key
• Dock Keyboard to switch a floating Standard, Split, Inking, or Expanded Touch Keyboard to docked to fix it at the bottom of the screen beneath the Excel program window (note that the Mobile style keyboard can’t be docked)
• Float Keyboard to switch a docked Standard, Split, Inking, or Expanded Touch Keyboard to floating so that you can drag it around the Excel program window
• Language Preferences to open Region & Language screen in Windows Settings where you can switch to or add another language to use its keyboard in Excel
• Typing Settings to open the Type screen in the Windows Settings where you modify the spelling and typing options including the one that automatically displays the selected Touch Keyboard whenever your laptop is in Tablet mode or your tablet has no keyboard attached to it
• Keyboard Tips to open the Tips app where you can get Windows 10 as well as Office 2019 tips

When docked, the default standard Windows 10 Touch keyboard remains completely separate from the Excel program window so that you still have access to all the cells in the current worksheet when doing your data entry. The standard Windows Touch keyboard is limited mostly to letter keys above a spacebar with a few punctuation symbols (apostrophe, comma, period, and question mark). This keyboard also sports the following special keys:

• Backspace key (marked with the x in the shape pointing left) to delete characters to the immediate left when entering or editing a cell entry
• Enter key to complete an entry in the current cell and move the cursor down one row in the same column
• Shift keys (with an arrow pointing upward) to enter capital letters in a cell entry
• Numeric key (with the &123) to switch to the Touch keyboard so that it displays a numeric keyboard with a Tab key and extensive punctuation used in entering numeric data in a cell (tap the &123 key a second time to return to the standard QWERTY letter arrangement)
• Ctrl key to run macros to which you’ve assigned letter keys (see Chapter 12 for details) or to combine with the Left arrow or Right arrow key to jump the cursor to the cell in the last and first column of the current row, respectively
• Emoticon key (with that awful smiley face icon) to switch to a bunch of emoticons that you can enter into a cell entry (tap the Emoticon key a second time to return to standard QWERTY letter arrangement)
• Left arrow (with the < symbol) to move the cell cursor one cell to the immediate left and complete any cell entry in progress
• Right arrow (with the > symbol) to move the cell cursor one cell to the immediate right and complete any cell entry in progress

If you’ve enabled Windows speech services on your device, you can dictate your Excel entry or edit by tapping the Microphone button (to the immediate right of the Keyboard Settings button).

When you finish entering your worksheet data with the Windows 10 Touch keyboard, you can close it and return to the normal full screen view of the Excel program window by tapping the Close button.

TIPS ON USING THE SCROLL BARS

You can use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the Worksheet area to scroll back and forth through the columns of a worksheet and the vertical scroll bar to scroll up and down through its rows. To scroll a column or a row at a time in a particular direction, select the appropriate scroll arrow at the ends of the scroll bar. To jump immediately back to the originally displayed area of the worksheet after scrolling through single columns or rows in this fashion, simply click (tap on a touchscreen) the area in the scroll bar that now appears in front of or after the scroll box.

You can resize the horizontal scroll bar making it wider or narrower by dragging the button that appears to the immediate left of its left scroll arrow. Just keep in mind when working in a workbook that contains a whole bunch of worksheets that widening the horizontal scroll bar can hide the display of the workbook’s later sheet tabs.

To scroll very quickly through columns or rows of the worksheet when you have a physical keyboard available, hold down the Shift key and then drag the scroll box in the appropriate direction within the scroll bar until the columns or rows that you want to see appear on the screen in the Worksheet area. When you hold down the Shift key while you scroll, the scroll button within the scroll bar becomes skinny, and a ScreenTip appears next to the scroll bar, keeping you informed of the letter(s) of the columns or the numbers of the rows that you’re whizzing through.

If you have a mouse and it’s equipped with a wheel, you can use it to scroll directly through the columns and rows of the worksheet without using the horizontal or vertical scroll bars. Simply position the white cross mouse pointer in the center of the Worksheet area and then hold down the wheel button of the mouse. When the mouse pointer changes to a four-pointed arrow with a black dot in its center, drag the mouse pointer in the appropriate direction (left and right to scroll through columns or up and down to scroll through rows) until the desired column or row comes into view in the Worksheet area.

On a touchscreen device, you can also scroll new parts of a worksheet into view simply by swiping with your finger or stylus to scroll (by dragging it on the screen). To scroll new worksheet columns on the right into view, you swipe right to left. To scroll new worksheet rows from below into view, swipe up, bottom to top. The force with which you slide determines how many columns or rows you scroll through. To return previously displayed columns or rows into view, simply slide in the opposite direction: left to right to scroll columns left and downward to scroll rows up.

The only disadvantage to using the scroll bars to move around is that the scroll bars bring only new sections of the worksheet into view — they don’t actually change the position of the cell cursor. If you want to start making entries in the cells in a new area of the worksheet, you still have to remember to select the cell (by clicking it) or the group of cells (by dragging through them) where you want the data to appear before you begin entering the data.

Surfing the sheets in a workbook

Each new workbook you open in Excel 2019 contains a single blank worksheet with 16,384 columns and 1,048,576 rows (giving you a truly staggering 17,179,869,184 blank cells!). But, that’s not all. If ever you need more worksheets in your workbook, you can add them simply by clicking the New Sheet button (indicated by the plus sign in a circle) that appears to the immediate right of the last visible tab (see callout in Figure 1-8) or by selecting Shift+F11.

On the left side of the bottom of the Worksheet area, the Sheet Tab scroll buttons appear followed by the actual tabs for the worksheets in your workbook and the New Sheet button. To activate a worksheet for editing, you select it by clicking its sheet tab. Excel lets you know what sheet is active by displaying the sheet name in boldface type and underlining it to make its tab appear connected to the current sheet.

Don’t forget the Ctrl+Page Down and Ctrl+Page Up shortcut keys for selecting the next and previous sheet, respectively, in your workbook.

If your workbook contains too many sheets for all the tabs to be displayed at the bottom of the Worksheet area, use the Sheet Tab scroll buttons to bring new tabs into view (so that you can then click them to activate them). You click the Next Sheet button (the ellipsis or three periods to the left of the first visible sheet) to scroll the next hidden sheet tab into view or the Last Sheet button (the ellipsis or three periods to the left of the last visible sheet) to scroll the last group of completely or partially hidden tabs into view.

To scroll the very first worksheet in the workbook into view, you can hold down Ctrl as you click the left-pointing Sheet Tab scroll button. To scroll the last sheet into view, you Ctrl+click the right-pointing scroll button.

To display the Activate dialog box that lists all the sheets in the workbook from first to last, right-click either one of the Sheet Tab scroll buttons. You can then scroll into view and click any of the sheets in the workbook simply by clicking its name in the Activate dialog followed by clicking OK.

On a touchscreen device, remember that the touch equivalent of a right-click with a mouse is to tap and press the graphic element on the screen — the Sheet Tab scroll button in this case — until a circle appears around your finger or stylus. When you then remove your finger or stylus from the screen, the shortcut menu or, in this case, the dialog box associated with the graphic element appears.

Showing off the Status bar

The Status bar is the last component at the very bottom of the Excel program window (see Figure 1-9). The Status bar contains the following:

• Mode indicator on the left that shows the current state of the Excel program (Ready, Edit, and so on) as well as any special keys that are engaged (Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock).
• Record Macro button to the immediate right of the Mode indicator to begin recording a new macro (this button appears once you record your first macro; see Chapter 12 for details)
• AutoCalculate indicator on the right side of the screen that displays the average and sum of all the numerical entries in the current cell selection along with the count of every cell in the selection.
• Layout selector that enables you to select between three layouts for the Worksheet area: Normal, the default view that shows only the worksheet cells with the column and row headings; Page Layout View that adds rulers, page margins, and shows page breaks for the worksheet; and Page Break Preview that enables you to adjust the paging of a report. (See Chapter 5 for details.)
• Zoom slider that enables you to zoom in and out on the cells in the Worksheet area by dragging the slider to the right or left, respectively.

On a touchscreen device, you can work the Zoom slider by using the Pinch and Stretch gesture to increase and decrease the size of the cells displayed in your worksheet. As you stretch your thumb and forefinger apart, you zoom in on the worksheet and the Zoom slider moves to the right and the percentage increases. As you pinch your fingers together, you zoom out on the worksheet and the Zoom slider moves to the left and the percentage decreases.

The Num Lock indicator on a physical keyboard equipped with a numeric keypad tells you that you can use the keypad to enter values in the worksheet. This keypad will most often be separate from the regular keyboard (on the right side if you’re using a separate keyboard) and embedded in keys on the right side of the keyboard on almost all laptop computers where the keyboard is built in to the computer.

Starting Excel from the Windows 10 Start menu

Windows 10 brings back the good old Start menu that many of you remember from much earlier Windows versions. The Windows 10 Start menu combines the straight menu from earlier days with the tile icons so prominent in Windows 8 Metro view (which reappears only in Windows 10 on tablets or on touchscreen devices when they are in Tablet mode).

To open the Start menu to launch Excel 2019, click the Windows icon on the taskbar or press the Windows key on your keyboard. Then, scroll down to the E section in the list of apps on your device and click Excel.

To make it easier to launch Excel from the Windows 10 Start menu, you can add its icon to the Start menu as a tile (that you click to launch Excel 2019). Simply right-click the Excel icon in the apps list and select the Pin to Start option on its popup menu. You can also pin an Excel icon to the Windows 10 taskbar. This enables you to launch Excel simply by selecting this button without even opening the Windows Start menu. To pin Excel to the taskbar, launch the program from the Start menu and then right-click the Excel icon on the Windows taskbar and then select the Pin to Taskbar option in the displayed context menu.

Starting Excel from the Windows 10 Search text box

Instead of opening the Windows 10 Start menu and locating the Excel app there, you can launch the program by selecting this item from the Windows Search text box. Simply type excel into the text box that appears to the immediate right of the Windows button on the taskbar and click Excel Desktop App at the top of its result list.

If you want Cortana, the voice-activated online Windows assistant, to launch Excel 2019 for you, click the microphone icon in this text box (that now displays Type Here to Search). When she displays the listening prompt, say, “Cortana, start Microsoft Excel 2019.” Or you can simply just say, “Hey Cortana, start Excel.” By the way, you can also do this by telling her, “open Excel” or even, launch Excel.”

Starting Excel from the Windows 10 Metro view in Tablet mode

When running Excel 2019 in tablet mode under Windows 10, your Start screen uses tiles in the Metro view introduced in Windows 8. To start Excel from this Start screen, you simply select the Excel program tile either by clicking it if you have a mouse available or tapping it with your finger or stylus.

If you can’t locate the Excel program tile among the pinned tiles in the Metro view, you can use the Search feature to find the application and pin it to this Start screen:

1. From the Start screen, click the Search button on the Windows taskbar (the one with the circle icon between the Back and Task View buttons) and then begin typing exc on your physical or virtual keyboard.

   Windows displays Excel Desktop app in the list under Best Match in the search list.

   If you don’t have access to a physical or virtual keyboard, you can locate the Excel app by switching the Start screen from the default of displaying just the pinned tiles to all the applications installed on your device. To do this, tap the All Apps button immediately beneath the Pinned Tiles button, the icon third from top in the upper-left of the Start screen. When you do this, you should see the Excel app button in the E alphabetical listing of all installed applications.

2. Right-click the Excel app button in the search list to open its pop-up menu.

   On a touchscreen device, the equivalent to the right-click of the mouse is to tap and hold the Excel menu item with your finger or stylus until the pop-up menu appears. (With the Microsoft Pen, you hold down the button on the pen’s side as you tap the Excel app button with the pen tip.)

3. Select the Pin to Start option in the pop-up menu.

After pinning an Excel program tile to the Start screen, you can resize it and then move it by dragging and dropping it in your desired block. If you switched to all apps to find the Excel app, you first need to switch the Metro view back to pinned apps by tapping the Pinned Tiles button before you can do this.

Exiting Excel

When you’re ready to call it a day and quit Excel, you have a couple of choices for shutting down the program:

• Press Alt+F4 on your keyboard.
• Right-click or tap and hold (on a touchscreen device) the Excel program icon on the Windows 10 taskbar and then click or tap the Close Window or Close All Windows item on the pop-up menu.

If you try to exit Excel after working on a workbook and you haven’t saved your latest changes, the program displays an alert box querying whether you want to save your changes. To save your changes before exiting, select the Save command button. (For detailed information on saving documents, see Chapter 2.) If you’ve just been playing around in the worksheet and don’t want to save your changes, you can abandon the workbook by selecting the Don’t Save button instead.

Using the Tell Me help feature

One of Excel 2019’s niftiest help features is the Tell Me help feature available from the Search text box located to the immediate right of the last tab in the Excel Ribbon. (You can press Alt+Q to insert the cursor in the Search text box without having to click it.) As you enter a help topic into this Search text box, Excel displays a list of related Excel commands in a drop-down list.

When you then select one of the items displayed on this list, Excel either selects the associated Ribbon command (no matter which Ribbon tab is currently selected) and waits for you to make a selection from the command’s submenu or, in some cases, just goes ahead and completes the associated command sequence for you.

For example, if you type print into the Search text box, Excel displays a drop-down list with the following items:

• Preview and Print
• Print
• Print Gridlines
• Print Preview and Print
• Print Area
• Get Help on “print”
• Smart Lookup on “print”

If you select the Preview and Print at the top of the list, a submenu with Print Preview and Print, Quick Print, and Print Preview Full Screen appears. If you select the Quick Print option, the program sends the worksheet directly to the printer. But if you select the Print Preview and Print or the Print Preview Full Screen item, Excel replaces the Worksheet view with a backstage full screen print preview page from which you can print the worksheet.

If you select the Print or Print Gridlines option second on the list, Excel sends the current cell selection directly to your default printer. If you select the Print Area option, a submenu that enables you to set or clear the current print area appears. If you select Print Preview and Print, Excel opens the Print screen in the Backstage with a preview of your printout that you can then send to your printer. (See Chapter 5 for complete details on previewing and printing your worksheets.)

If, however, you select the Get Help on “print” option on the list, Excel opens a submenu with Print a Worksheet or Workbook, Print a Chart, Print Comments, and More Results For options. When you select one of the three print options, Excel opens the Help task pane containing pertinent information on the type of printing selected. If you select More Results For, Excel does an online web search on printing and displays its results in the Help task pane.

In another example, if you type underline in the Search text box, Excel displays three items

• Underline
• Get Help on “Underline”
• Smart Lookup on “underline”

If you then select the Underline item, Excel goes ahead and assigns the underlining font attribute to whatever is in the cell that’s current in the worksheet.

If you would rather learn how to complete a task in Excel rather than have the program do it for you, select the Get Help on “xyz” item near the end of the search list. This opens an Excel Help task pane with loads of information about using the commands to accomplish that. To look up the item in question on the web using online resources such as Wikipedia, select the Smart Lookup on “xyz” option instead.