Viewing Your Spreadsheet

Viewing Your Spreadsheet Efficiently

Spreadsheets can get very big, too big to fit on your screen all at the same time, so you need to know how to navigate as well as some special viewing tricks.

Using the scrollbars: You can use the vertical and horizontal scrollbars to move around your spreadsheet:

Using keyboard shortcuts to navigate:

To	Press
Move one cell in a given direction	Arrow key
Move to the edge of the current data region (an area where you have put data that is surrounded by space or borders)	Ctrl+ arrow key
Move one cell to the right	Tab
Move to the beginning of the row	Home
Move to the beginning of the worksheet, usually A1	Ctrl+Home
Move to the bottom-right cell on the worksheet, at the intersection of the right-most used column and the bottom-most used row	Ctrl+End
Move down one screen	Page Down
Move up one screen	Page Up
Move one screen to the right	Alt+Page Down
Move one screen to the left	Alt+Page Up
Move to the next sheet in the workbook	Ctrl+Page Down
Move to the previous sheet in the workbook	Ctrl+Page Up
Move to the next pane	F6
Move to the previous pane	Shift+F6
Scroll to display the active cell (after you've scrolled it off the screen)	Ctrl+Backspace

Using the IntelliMouse to navigate:

If you have an IntelliMouse, you can use it to move around and zoom on your worksheet or chart::

To	Do this
Scroll up or down a few rows at a time	Rotate the wheel forward or back.
Pan through a worksheet	Hold down the wheel button, and drag the pointer away from the origin mark in the direction you want to scroll.
Zoom in or out	Hold down CTRL, and then rotate the IntelliMouse wheel forward or back.

Zooming In and Out

Work with a zoom that you can easily read but shows as much text as possible on the screen. To change the zoom setting, click the down arrow beside the Zoom drop-down list on the right of the Standard toolbar and choose one of the options. You can also type in your own zoom factor, such as 85.

To jump to a different location on the worksheet, zoom out, click the new location, and then zoom in.

Finding a Spreadsheet

If you cannot remember the name or location of a spreadsheet, you can have Excel search for the spreadsheet by text contained in the spreadsheet.

Steps for the PC

1. Click the Open button on the Standard (top) toolbar.
   
   
2. Click the next to last button (Preview button) in the Open dialog box toolbar. This button displays the contents of a highlighted spreadsheet.
   
   
3. Use the Look In drop-down list at the top of the dialog box to choose the drive you want to search. If you know the folder, choose that folder.
   
   
4. To search the contents of all subfolders in that drive click the Commands and Settings (the last button) in the Open dialog box toolbar and choose Search Subfolders.
   
   
5. At the bottom of the dialog box, fill in the criteria for the search. For example, if you know that the spreadsheet contains the word "mail," type mail in the Text or Property box.
   
   
6. Click Find Now. After a few seconds of searching, Excel lists all documents that contain the criteria you set.
   
   
7. Select the file you want to open and click Open.

Steps for the Mac

1. Click the Open bottom on the Standard (top) toolbar.
   
   
2. Click Find File.
   
   
3. Choose the hard disk in the Location drop-down list.
   
   
4. Click Advanced Search.
   
   
5. Type the text in the Containing Text box. For example, if you know that the spreadsheet contains the word "mail," type mail in the Containing Text box.
   
   
6. Click OK twice. Excel creates a list of the files that contain the criteria you set along with a preview box.
   
   
7. Select the file you want to open and click Open.

Using Worksheets and Workbooks

A workbook is an entire Excel file. Each workbook contains worksheets. The worksheets are named on a bottom tab (Sheet 1, Sheet 2, Sheet 3 however, you can rename these). Each worksheet can contain whatever data you want. Use more than one worksheet in a workbook when you want to place related data together in one file. For example, you could track income and expenses for a year in a workbook and use a worksheet for each month. A thirteenth worksheet could contain yearly totals.

• To move through the worksheets, click the tabs.
  
  
• To insert (add) a worksheet within a workbook, choose Insert > Worksheet.
  
  
• To select a worksheet, click its tab. To select several consecutive worksheets, click the first worksheet's tab, press and hold down Shift and click the last worksheet;'s tab. To select more than one worksheet, click the first worksheet's tab, press and hold down Ctrl/Option and click the next worksheet's tab.
  
  
• To delete a worksheet, select the worksheet you want to delete. Choose Edit > Delete Sheet. Then click OK.
  
  
• To change a worksheet's name, double-click the worksheet's tab and type its new name.
  
  
• To move a worksheet in the current worksheet, drag the worksheet's tab along the row of tabs to the desired location. To copy a worksheet in the current worksheet, press and hold Ctrl/Option and drag the worksheet's tab along the row of tabs to the desired location.

  Caution: Be careful when you move or copy sheets. Calculations or charts based on data on a worksheet might become inaccurate if you move the worksheet, especially if you have calculations from one worksheet to another (3D formulas).

  
  
  

To move or copy a worksheet to another workbook, follow these steps:

1. Open the workbook that will receive the worksheet.
   
   
2. Switch to the workbook that contains the worksheets you want to move or copy. (Choose it from the Window menu. In Excel 2000, you can choose its button on the Taskbar.)
   
   
3. Select the workheets. you want to move or copy.
   
   
4. Choose Edit > Move or Copy Sheet.
   
   
5. In the To Book text box, choose the workbook where you want to move or copy the worksheets. (Choose New Book to move or copy the worksheets to a new workbook.)
   
   
6. In the Before Sheet box, click the worksheet before which you want to insert the worksheets you are moving or copying.
   
   
7. To copy the worksheets, check the Create a Copy checkbox.
   
   
8. Click OK.

Splitting and Freezing Panes

To see two distant parts of a worksheet at once, you can split the screen. You can then scroll separately in each pane. You can split the screen vertically or horizontally.

To split the screen into two panes, drag the split box at the top of the vertical scrollbar or the right of the horizontal scrollbar to the desired position. Note that the cursor changes to a split arrow as you drag.

You can freeze row and column headings so you can view them no matter how far down or to the right you scroll.

• To freeze column headings only, click the cell in the the first column (A), just below the headings. If your headings take up only one row, this would be cell A2
  
  
• To freeze row headings only, click the cell in the first row (1), just to the right of the headiings. If your headings take up only one column, this would be cell B1.
  
  
• To freeze both column and row headings, click the cell just below and to the right of the headings. If both headings take up only one row/column, this would be cell B2.
  
  

Choose Window > Freeze Panes.

To unfreeze the headings, choose Window > Unfreeze Panes.

To view two workbooks at once you can split the screen. Open both, choose Window > Arrange. Choose a display option (such as Tiled) and click OK. You can also toggle between several workbooks by choosing Window and clicking the workbook file. (In Excel 2000 you can choose from any open workbook on the Taskbar.)

Printing

To print a file, follow these steps:

1. To see how the worksheet will fit on a sheet of paper, click Print Preview on the Standard toolbar.
   
   
2. To print part of a worksheet, drag from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner to select the cells. Then choose File > Print Area > Set Print Area.
   
   
3. To format how the page will look, choose File > Page Setup. Here you can set page orientation, scaling, margins, headers and footers, titles, page order, whether or not to print the gridlines you see in the worksheet, and more. Click OK when you're done.
   
   
4. Once you have set everything up, click Print on the Standard toolbar or choose Print from Page Setup or Print Preview.