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When you launch Excel 2016, the Start screen similar to the one shown in Figure 1-1 opens. Here you can start a new blank workbook by clicking the Blank workbook template, or you can select any of the other templates shown as the basis for your new spreadsheet. If none of the templates shown in the Start screen suits your needs, you can search for templates online. After you’ve worked with Excel for some time, the Start screen also displays a list of recently opened workbooks that you can reopen for further editing or printing.

FIGURE 1-1: The Excel 2016 Start screen enables you to open a new blank workbook, a recently opened workbook, or find a template to use as the basis for a new workbook.

When you select the Blank workbook template from the Excel 2016 Start screen, the program opens an initial worksheet (named Sheet1) in a new workbook file (named Book1) inside a program window like the one shown in Figure 1-2.

FIGURE 1-2: The Excel 2016 program window that appears immediately after selecting the Blank Workbook template in the opening screen.

The Excel program window containing this worksheet of the workbook contains the following components:

❯❯ File button that when clicked opens the Backstage view – a menu on the left that contains all the document- and file-related commands, including Info, New, Open (selected by default when you first launch Excel), Save, Save As, Print, Share, Export, and Close. Additionally, at the bottom, there’s an Account option with User and Product information and an Options item that enables you to change many of Excel’s default settings. Note that you can exit the Backstage view and return to the normal worksheet view.

❯❯ Customizable Quick Access toolbar that contains buttons you can click to perform common tasks, such as saving your work and undoing and redoing edits. This toolbar is preceded by an Excel program button (sporting the Excel 2016 icon) with a drop-down menu of options that enable you to control the size and position of the Excel window and even close (exit) the program.

❯❯ Ribbon that contains the bulk of the Excel commands arranged into a series of tabs ranging from Home through View.

❯❯ Formula bar that displays the address of the current cell along with the contents of that cell.

❯❯ Worksheet area that contains the cells of the worksheet identified by column headings using letters along the top and row headings using numbers along the left edge; tabs for selecting new worksheets; a horizontal scroll bar to move left and right through the sheet; and a vertical scroll bar to move up and down through the sheet.

❯❯ Status bar that keeps you informed of the program’s current mode and any special keys you engage and enables you to select a new worksheet view and to zoom in and out on the worksheet.

Going Backstage

To the immediate left of the Home tab on the Ribbon right below the 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, Excel displays at-a-glance stats about the workbook file you have open and active in the program.

FIGURE 1-3: Open Backstage view to get at-a-glance information about the current file, access all file-related commands, and modify the program options.

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, and manage its versions. 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, Print, Share, Export, and Close) 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 that you can select to change the program’s 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.

FIGURE 1-4: Excel’s Ribbon consists of a series of tabs containing command buttons arranged into different groups.

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 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.

Keeping tabs on the Ribbon

The first time you launch a new workbook in Excel 2016, 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, Apps, Charts, Reports, Sparklines, Filter, Links, Text, and Symbols groups.

❯❯ 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 External Data, Connections, Sort & Filter, Data Tools, 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, Language, Comments, and Changes groups. Note: This tab also contains an Ink group with a sole Start Inking button when you’re running Office 2016 on a device with a touchscreen such as a Tablet PC 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.

In addition to these standard seven tabs, Excel has an eighth, 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 2016 with the INQUIRE and PowerPivot add-ins installed, an INQUIRE and PowerPivot 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.

FIGURE 1-5: When you select certain objects in the worksheet, Excel adds contextual tools to the Ribbon with their own tabs, groups, and command buttons.

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, and View – displayed.

Selecting commands with mouse and keyboard

Because Excel 2016 runs on many different types of devices from desktop computer to touchscreen tablets, the most efficient means of selecting Ribbon commands depends not only on the device on which you’re running the program, but also on the way that device is equipped.

For example, when I run Excel 2016 on my Microsoft Surface 3 tablet in its dock equipped with a physical keyboard and with my optical wireless mouse connected, I select commands from the Excel Ribbon more or less the same way I do when running Excel on my Windows desktop computer equipped with a stand-alone physical keyboard and mouse or laptop computer with its built-in physical keyboard and trackpad.

However, when I run Excel 2016 on my Surface 3 tablet without access to the dock with its physical keyboard and mouse, I am limited to selecting Ribbon commands directly on the touchscreen with my finger or stylus.

The most direct method for selecting Ribbon commands on a device equipped with a physical keyboard and mouse is to click the tab that contains the command button you want and then click that button in its group. For example, to insert an online image into your spreadsheet, you click the Insert tab and then click the Illustrations button followed by the Online Pictures button to open the Insert Pictures dialog box.

The easiest method for selecting commands on the Ribbon – if you know your keyboard at all well – is to press the keyboard’s Alt key and then type the letter of the hot key that appears on the tab you want to select. Excel then displays all the command button hot keys next to their buttons, along with the hot keys for the dialog box launchers in any group on that tab. To select a command button or dialog box launcher, simply type its hot key letter.

If you know the old Excel shortcut keys from versions prior to Excel 2007, you can still use them. For example, instead of going through the rigmarole of pressing Alt+HCC to copy a cell selection to the Windows Clipboard and then Alt+HVP to paste it elsewhere in the sheet, you can still press Ctrl+C to copy the selection and then press Ctrl+V when you’re ready to paste it.

Selecting commands by touch

Before trying to select Excel Ribbon commands by touch, however, you definitely want to turn on Touch mode in Excel 2016. When you do this, Excel spreads out the command buttons on the Ribbon tabs by putting more space around them, making it more likely you’ll actually select the command button you’re tapping with your finger (or stylus) instead of one right next to it. (This is a particular problem with the command buttons in the Font group on the Home tab that enable you to add different attributes to cell entries, such as bold, italic, or underlining: They are so close together when Touch mode is off that they are almost impossible to correctly select by touch.)

To do this, simply tap the Touch/Mouse Mode button that appears near the end of the Quick Access toolbar sandwiched between the Redo and Customize Quick Access Toolbar buttons. When you tap this button a drop-down menu with two options, Mouse and Touch, appears. Tap the Touch option to put your touchscreen tablet or laptop into Touch mode.

Although the Touch/Mouse Mode button is automatically added to the Excel 2016 Quick Access toolbar only when running the program on a tablet or personal computer equipped with a touchscreen, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it to switch between Touch mode (with more space between Ribbon command buttons) and Mouse mode on a standard computer without touchscreen technology. All you have to do is add the Touch/Mouse Mode button to the Quick Access toolbar (see “Customizing the Quick Access toolbar” that follows for details).

WHAT CLICK AND DRAG MEANS ON YOUR DEVICE

Given all the different choices for selecting stuff in Excel, you need to be aware of a few click-and-drag conventions used throughout this book. When I say click something (a command button, cell, or whatever), this means click the primary mouse button (the left one unless you change it) on a physical mouse or tap with your finger or a stylus on a touchscreen. When I say double-click something, this means click the primary button twice in rapid succession on a physical mouse and double-tap the object with your finger or stylus. When I say right-click, this means click with the secondary button (the right-hand button unless you change it) on a physical mouse or tap the object and keep your finger or stylus on the touchscreen until the context menu or pop-up gallery or whatever appears. Finally, when I say drag through a cell selection, with a physical mouse this means click the cell and then hold down the primary mouse button as you swipe and then release the button when the selection is made. On a touchscreen, you tap the cell to make the selection handles appear (the circles that appear at the upper-left and lower-right corners of the cell) and then use your finger or stylus to drag the selection handle through the cells.

Customizing the Quick Access toolbar

When you start using Excel 2016, the Quick Access toolbar contains only the following few buttons:

❯❯ 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

❯❯ Touch/Mouse Mode (tablets and computers with touchscreens only) to place more space around Ribbon command buttons to make it easier to select commands with your finger or stylus

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 immediately to the right of the Excel program button (used to resize the workbook window or quit the program). 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 Customize Quick Access Toolbar’s menu commands

When you click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button, a drop-down menu appears containing the following commands:

❯❯ New to open a new workbook

❯❯ Open to display the Open dialog box for opening an existing workbook

❯❯ Save to save changes to your current workbook

❯❯ Email to open your mail

❯❯ Quick Print to send the current worksheet to your default printer

❯❯ Print Preview and Print to open the Print panel in Backstage view with a preview of the current worksheet in the right pane

❯❯ Spelling to check the current worksheet for spelling errors

❯❯ Undo to undo your latest worksheet edit

❯❯ Redo to reapply the last edit that you removed with Undo

❯❯ Sort Ascending to sort the current cell selection or column in A to Z alphabetical order, lowest to highest numerical order, or oldest to newest date order

❯❯ Sort Descending to sort the current cell selection or column in Z to A alphabetical order, highest to lowest numerical order, or newest to oldest date order

❯❯ Touch /Mouse Mode to switch in and out of Touch mode that adds extra space around the command buttons on the individual Ribbon tabs to make them easier to select on a touchscreen device regardless of whether you tap with your finger or a stylus

When you open this menu, only the Save, Undo, Redo, and possibly the Touch/Mouse Mode options are the ones selected (indicated by the check marks); therefore, these buttons are the only buttons to appear on the Quick Access toolbar. To add any of the other commands on this menu to the toolbar, you simply click the option on the drop-down menu. Excel then adds a button for that command to the end of the Quick Access toolbar (and a check mark to its option on the drop-down menu).

To remove a command button that you add to the Quick Access toolbar in this manner, click the option a second time on the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button’s drop-down menu. Excel removes its command button from the toolbar and the check mark from its option on the drop-down menu.

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.

FIGURE 1-6: Use the buttons on the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box to customize the appearance of the Quick Access toolbar.

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 twice. 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.

Adding non-Ribbon commands to the Quick Access toolbar

You can also use the options on the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box (refer to Figure 1-6) to add a button for any Excel command even if it isn’t one of those displayed on the tabs of the Ribbon:

1. Select the type of command you want to add to the Quick Access toolbar in the Choose Commands From drop-down list box.

The types of commands include the Popular Commands pull-down menu (the default) as well as each of the tabs that appear on the Ribbon. To display only the commands that are not displayed on the Ribbon, select Commands Not in the Ribbon near the top of the drop-down list. To display a complete list of the Excel commands, select All Commands near the top of the drop-down list.

2. Select the command button you want to add to the Quick Access toolbar in the list box on the left.

3. Click the Add button to add the command button to the bottom of the list box on the right.

4. (Optional) To reposition the newly added command button so that it isn’t the last one on the toolbar, click the Move Up button until it’s in the desired position.

5. Click OK to close the Excel Options dialog box.

If you’ve created favorite macros (see Chapter 12) that you routinely use and want to be able to run directly from the Quick Access toolbar, select Macros in the Choose Commands From drop-down list box in the Excel Options dialog box and then click the name of the macro to add followed by the Add button.

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 sections:

❯❯ Name box: The left-most section that displays the address of the current cell address.

❯❯ Formula bar buttons: The second, middle section that appears as a rather nondescript button displaying only an indented circle on the left (used to narrow or widen the Name box) and the Insert Function button (labeled fx) on the right. When you start making or editing a cell entry, Cancel (an X) and Enter (a check mark) buttons appear between them.

❯❯ Cell contents: The third, right-most section 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 section 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.

HOW YOU ASSIGN 26 LETTERS TO 16,384 COLUMNS

When it comes to labeling the 16,384 columns of an Excel 2016 worksheet, our alphabet with its measly 26 letters is simply not up to the task. To make up the difference, Excel doubles the letters in the cell’s column reference so that column AA follows column Z (after which you find column AB, AC, and so on) and then triples them so that column AAA follows column ZZ (after which you get column AAB, AAC, and the like). At the end of this letter tripling, the 16,384th and last column of the worksheet ends up being XFD so that the last cell in the 1,048,576th row has the cell address XFD1048576!

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 in different sections 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 of 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, then 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.

TABLE 1-1 Keystrokes for Moving the Cell Cursor

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 2016 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 Touch keyboard, simply tap the Touch Keyboard button that appears on the right side of the Windows taskbar. Doing this displays the Touch keyboard, floating undocked at the bottom of the Excel program window, as shown in Figure 1-7.

FIGURE 1-7: Windows 10 touchscreen shown after displaying the Touch keyboard beneath the Excel 2016 program window.

To dock the Touch keyboard beneath the Excel 2016 program window, simply click the Dock button that appears to the immediate left of the Close button in the upper-right corner of the keyboard. To once again undock the Touch keyboard so that it floats and you can move around with your finger, tap the Float button (with a caret pointing upward on top of the keyboard icon) that replaces the Dock button (with a caret pointing downward).

As shown in this figure, when docked, the 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 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 right and complete any cell entry in progress

❯❯ Right arrow (with the > symbol) to move the cell cursor one cell to the immediate left and complete any cell entry in progress

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.

The Windows Touch keyboard supports a split-keyboard arrangement that separates the QWERTY letter keys into two banks on the left and right with a ten-key numeric keypad in the middle. The drawback is that the individual keys are smaller than the normal, non-split arrangement and can be harder to select with your finger or stylus. To switch to the split-keyboard arrangement, tap the Keyboard button in the very lower-right corner of the Touch keyboard (to the immediate right of the Right arrow key) and then tap the second button from the left (that shows a gap in the keyboard icon) in the pop-up menu that appears.

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 bar.

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 button 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 2016 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.

FIGURE 1-8: The Sheet Tab scroll buttons, sheet tabs, Next sheet, Previous sheet, and New Sheet buttons enable you to activate your worksheets and add to them.

ONE REASON FOR ADDING EXTRA SHEETS TO A WORKBOOK

You may wonder why anyone would ever need more than a single worksheet given just how many cells it already contains. The truth is that it’s all about how you choose to structure a particular spreadsheet rather than running out of places to put the data. For example, suppose that you need to create a workbook that contains budgets for all the various departments in your corporation. You may decide to devote an individual worksheet to each department (with the actual budget spreadsheet tables laid out in the same manner on each sheet) rather than placing all the tables in different sections of the same sheet. Using this kind of one-sheet-per-budget layout makes it much easier for you to find each budget, print each one as a separate page of a report, and, if ever necessary, to consolidate the data in a separate summary worksheet.

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).

❯❯ AutoCalculate indicator 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.

FIGURE 1-9: The Status bar displays the program’s current standing and enables you to select new worksheet views.

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.