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Breaking Up Isn't Hard to Do
To break a long cell entry into separate lines, position the cursor where you want a new line to start and press Alt+Enter. Excel will expand the row to accommodate wrapping lines of text. Press Enter to complete the entry.
Not Boxed In
Many dialog boxes and wizards in Excel 97 let you select cells from your spreadsheet while working in a dialog box. Look for the small grid button with a red arrow in it. When you click on it, the wizard or dialog box shrinks to a single line so you can select a cell or range of cells. Click on the grid button again to expand the dialog box.
Back Up Your Charts
To add a background to an Excel bar or line chart, right-click on the plot area (the part behind the data points) and select Format Plot Area. Under the Patterns tab click on the Fill Effects button and select the Gradient, Texture and Pattern tabs. You can even import a photograph under the Picture tab. When you're done, click on OK twice.
Spreadsheet Stop Lights
To examine data with special highlighting, select the data and specify three conditions: Use red font color or cell shading for values less than a specified minimum, yellow for values within the specified range and green for values greater than a specified maximum.
16 Degrees of Correction
Excel 97 offers 16 levels of Undo. On the Standard toolbar, click on the drop-down menu next to the Undo arrow and select the action or actions you wish to undo.
Put Text in Its Place
Use the Merge Cells tools to display large blocks of text in a spreadsheet. Select the group of cells in which you'd like text to appear and right-click to bring up the shortcut menu. Choose Format Cells. Select the Alignment tab and click on the Wrap Text and Merge Cells option. Text will flow smoothly within the merged cells without spilling over into adjacent cells.
Extra Texture
Add some texture to your work. Select the textures palette and double-click on a texture to bring up the textures editor.
Zooming Mouse
Use your Intellimouse to zoom in and out of your worksheet. Hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and roll the mouse's wheel toward you to zoom in, and away to zoom out.
Making Friends with the Web
To create a hyperlink in your spreadsheet with a "friendly name" instead of a URL address, choose the Paste Formula button on the toolbar, select "Lookup & Reference" in the Categories window and "Hyperlink" in the Function Name window. Press OK. Enter the URL and the name you want displayed on your spreadsheet and press OK.
Putting the Break Where It Belongs
Changing page breaks lets you arrange your document on the fly. In the View menu, select the Page Break Preview and click the dotted-line page edge. Drag and drop it to a new position. Choose View/Normal to return to your regular spreadsheet view.
Whether Conditions
When you use Conditional Formatting, if you specify multiple conditions and more than one condition is true/ Excel applies only the formats for the first true condition.
Editing Magic
Select the chart you want to edit and choose the Chart menu to see a list of the wizard dialog boxes. Select the one you want to work with.
Format with Style
Indent a range of cells by selecting them and clicking the Increase Indent button in the toolbar. To Indent a single cell more than the others (a hanging indent), select that cell and click Increase Indent again. You can apply up to 15 levels.
To Formal or Not To Format
To quickly spot key values, use Conditional Formatting in the Format menu. To use values in the selected cells as formatting criteria, select Cell Value Is and a comparison phrase, and type in a value in the appropriate box. To evaluate data or conditions other than the values in the selected cells, use a formula as the formatting criteria. Click Formula Is in the left box and enter the formula in the right box. Click format. You can also select font style and color, underlining, borders and shading. Excel only applies the selected formats of the cell values meeting the criteria. You can apply up to three conditions.
Snare Data From the Web
You can capture live data from Web-based spreadsheets and manipulate it in your own spreadsheet. To open the Web spreadsheet, type or paste its URL into the File Open dialog box. Select and copy the cells you want. In your spreadsheet, select Edit/Paste Special from the menu bar and click the Paste Link button.
New Slant on Spreadsheets
You can rotate spreadsheet column headings to a 45-degree angle. Select the cells containing the column headers, right-click the selection and choose Format Cells. Click on the Alignment tab and set Orientation to 45 degrees. Click on OK.
Last updated on 17/6/1999.
