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.Tip See more rows on your screenThe Windows taskbar at the bottom of the screen can be set to automatically hide itselfwhen not in use.In Windows XP, click the Start button, click Control Panel, click AppearanceAnd Themes, and then click Taskbar And Start Menu.On the Taskbar tab, click Auto-hidethe Taskbar.In Windows 98, Windows Me, or Windows 2000, click the Start button, pointto Settings, and click Taskbar & Start Menu.On the Taskbar tab (in Windows XP) or TaskbarOptions tab, click Auto Hide, then click OK.Now the taskbar stays hidden and pops up onlywhen you move the mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen.22Chapter 2 Part 1: Examining the Excel EnvironmentExcel FundamentalsMicrosoft and the SDINo, we re not talking about the Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a.Star Wars).It s the SingleDocument Interface initiative that Microsoft implemented in the last two versions of Office.The way that Office applications now handle multiple open documents might be a bit con-fusing.Previously, regardless of the number of documents you had open, only the applica-tions were visible and available for task-switching by using Alt+Tab or by using the Windowstaskbar.If you had three Excel worksheets open, you only saw one instance of Excel.Today, however, Microsoft s SDI initiative dictates that each document now generates itsown separate window, which becomes a separate item in the taskbar.Open three Excelworksheets, and you ll see three items in the taskbar.This is arguably a more realistic wayto handle documents, which is why Microsoft did it in the first place.Exploring Menus and Dialog BoxesAfter you get the raw data into Excel by whatever means, you ll be spending a lot of time usingmenus and dialog boxes to massage and beautify your data.Here are some fun facts andessential information about them.Morphing MenusWhen you first display a menu in Excel, the menu appears with a limited number of com-mands.After a few seconds, the menu automatically grows to include more commands, asshown in Figure 2-7.This feature is meant to help simplify the ever-increasing complementof commands Excel provides by hiding some of them, at least for a while.When you firststart Excel, the commands immediately visible are the ones that are historically the mostoften used, but as you work with Excel, the additional commands you choose will also appearon the shorter menus.This is referred to as the Recently Used Commands feature, whichkeeps track of your command-usage habits.Double arrowf02ie07Figure 2-7.The shorter menu on the left shows its most recently used commands.The full23menu on the right shows all its commands.Chapter 2 Part 1: Examining the Excel EnvironmentMicrosoft Office Excel 2003 Inside OutIf you find yourself distracted by the delayed unfurling of menus, you have a couple ofoptions.First, you can simply double-click the menu name.Second, you can click the doublearrow at the bottom of the menu.The permanent solution is to choose Tools, Customize, andthen click the Options tab in the Customize dialog box, shown in Figure 2-8.Select theAlways Show Full Menus option to eliminate the problem for good.If you clear the Show FullMenus After A Short Delay option, short menus will stay short unless you double-click themenu name or click the double arrow at the bottom of the menus.The Recently Used Commands feature records your usage habits and adds commands thatyou use to shortened menus.When you click Reset Menu and Toolbar Usage Data in the Cus-tomize dialog box, all menus revert to their original state.The data collected about the com-mands you have used is discarded and collection begins anew.f02ie08Figure 2-8.On this tab, you can choose to always display full menus or clear the delayed-display option.Note To suit your work style, you can rearrange Excel s menus and commands and createyour own menus.For more information, see Customizing Toolbars and Menus on page 65.Tip Use shortcut keysSome commands on Excel s menus are followed by their keyboard equivalents.These keycombinations allow you to choose a command without first displaying an Excel menu.Accessing Menus and Commands with the KeyboardWhen you press the Alt key, Excel activates the menu bar.Use the arrow keys to move to themenu you want and highlight the desired command, then press Enter to choose the com-mand.The underlined letter in each of the menu and command names designates the letterkey you can press to display that particular menu, as an alternative to using the arrow keys.For example, after you press the Alt key to activate the menu bar, you can press the T key to24Chapter 2 Part 1: Examining the Excel EnvironmentExcel Fundamentalsdisplay the Tools menu.Then, to choose a particular command such as Options, press theO key the underlined letter in Options to display the Options dialog box.So, instead ofreaching for the mouse, simply pressing Alt, T, O gets you there.This makes for extremelyfast command access once you ve learned the right keys for things you do often.Tip Menu-activating optionsThe slash (/) key can be used just like the Alt key to activate menus [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]