Each Excel document is referred to as a workbook and each workbook can contain up to 255 worksheets. To activate a particular worksheet, click on one of the tabs displayed at the bottom of your screen.
To the left of the tabs will find four navigation buttons. These are useful where you have a workbook that either contains lots of worksheets or has worksheets with very long names. The very first one makes the name of the first worksheet visible; the very last one makes the name of the last worksheet visible. The left pointing arrow makes the name of the previous worksheet visible and of course the right pointing arrow makes the name of the next worksheet visible. These icons don't actually activate a worksheet; they simply make its name tab visible. To activate a sheet, you still have to click on that particular tab.
Worksheets can also be activated via the keyboard. To activate the next sheet to the right, hold down Control and press Page Down. This moves you forward through your worksheets are naturally holding Control and pressing the Page Up button moves you back to the left.
Once you've navigated to a particular worksheet, you will need to go to a particular cell or a particular section of that worksheet. Naturally, you can use the scrollbars to make different parts of the worksheet visible. You can also move around the worksheet using the arrows on your keyboard: down, right, up and left.
Excel also contains useful keyboard shortcuts for moving to the edges of a given body of data. To get to the right-most cell of the current range, hold down Control and press the right arrow and of course to get to the bottom cell, hold down Control and press the down arrow.
It is also possible to do exactly the same thing using the mouse. Position the cursor on one of the edges of the bold selection rectangle surrounding the active cell and then simply double-click. Double-clicking on the right hand edge of the selection rectangle activates the extreme right of the current range. Double-clicking on the bottom edge moves the cursor to the bottom edge of the range, and so on.
There are two final navigation key combinations which are definitely worth mentioning: Control-Home and Control-End. Hold down the Control key and press the End key to move to the bottom right of the active range. Hold down Control and press Home to move to the top left of the active range.
As well as navigating through worksheets, all users of Excel make frequent use of the Ribbon. Excel offers a series of useful keyboard shortcuts when working with the Ribbon.
To access the ribbon keyboard shortcuts simply press the Alt key once on your keyboard. A series of letters and numbers is then displayed which represent the shortcuts that you should type to activate that part of the Ribbon. For example, "W" is the shortcut for accessing the View Tab.
When you press "W" and the View Tab becomes active, another series of badges is displayed on each of the commands within the View Tab. For example, the "Arrange All" command has "A" as its keyboard shortcut, so simply typing "A" is equivalent to clicking the Arrange All button.
Once you've typed a letter to execute a command, the Ribbon loses focus and the shortcut badges disappear. To access Ribbon commands via the keyboard once more, simply press the Alt Key and the badges will reappear. This means that you never have to worry about learning keyboard shortcuts. All you have to remember is to press the Alt key on your keyboard and Excel will prompt you from there. - 16069
To the left of the tabs will find four navigation buttons. These are useful where you have a workbook that either contains lots of worksheets or has worksheets with very long names. The very first one makes the name of the first worksheet visible; the very last one makes the name of the last worksheet visible. The left pointing arrow makes the name of the previous worksheet visible and of course the right pointing arrow makes the name of the next worksheet visible. These icons don't actually activate a worksheet; they simply make its name tab visible. To activate a sheet, you still have to click on that particular tab.
Worksheets can also be activated via the keyboard. To activate the next sheet to the right, hold down Control and press Page Down. This moves you forward through your worksheets are naturally holding Control and pressing the Page Up button moves you back to the left.
Once you've navigated to a particular worksheet, you will need to go to a particular cell or a particular section of that worksheet. Naturally, you can use the scrollbars to make different parts of the worksheet visible. You can also move around the worksheet using the arrows on your keyboard: down, right, up and left.
Excel also contains useful keyboard shortcuts for moving to the edges of a given body of data. To get to the right-most cell of the current range, hold down Control and press the right arrow and of course to get to the bottom cell, hold down Control and press the down arrow.
It is also possible to do exactly the same thing using the mouse. Position the cursor on one of the edges of the bold selection rectangle surrounding the active cell and then simply double-click. Double-clicking on the right hand edge of the selection rectangle activates the extreme right of the current range. Double-clicking on the bottom edge moves the cursor to the bottom edge of the range, and so on.
There are two final navigation key combinations which are definitely worth mentioning: Control-Home and Control-End. Hold down the Control key and press the End key to move to the bottom right of the active range. Hold down Control and press Home to move to the top left of the active range.
As well as navigating through worksheets, all users of Excel make frequent use of the Ribbon. Excel offers a series of useful keyboard shortcuts when working with the Ribbon.
To access the ribbon keyboard shortcuts simply press the Alt key once on your keyboard. A series of letters and numbers is then displayed which represent the shortcuts that you should type to activate that part of the Ribbon. For example, "W" is the shortcut for accessing the View Tab.
When you press "W" and the View Tab becomes active, another series of badges is displayed on each of the commands within the View Tab. For example, the "Arrange All" command has "A" as its keyboard shortcut, so simply typing "A" is equivalent to clicking the Arrange All button.
Once you've typed a letter to execute a command, the Ribbon loses focus and the shortcut badges disappear. To access Ribbon commands via the keyboard once more, simply press the Alt Key and the badges will reappear. This means that you never have to worry about learning keyboard shortcuts. All you have to remember is to press the Alt key on your keyboard and Excel will prompt you from there. - 16069
About the Author:
The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Excel 2007 Classes at their central London training centre.
