Microsoft Excel has no menus or toolbars. However, it does have a feature called the Office Button which bears a remarkable resemblance to a menu as well as a Quick Access Toolbar which behaves a lot like the toolbars found in previous versions of Microsoft Office. In this article, we’ll examine these two features and see how they work.

The Office Button

The Office Button is displayed in the top left of the Excel screen. When you click on it, a menu is displayed which resembles the menus found in most programs and, indeed, in previous versions of Excel. Here you can create new documents, open existing documents, save, print and prepare documents for distribution. You can close the currently active document or exit Excel altogether.

On the right-hand side of the Office Button menu is a list of the recently opened files. Next to each item is a pin icon. Clicking on this icon pins the associated document, which means that it won’t disappear from the list of recently opened files; whereas other, unpinned, documents will eventually disappear from the list as new documents are created and opened.

Last but not least, it is here that you will find “Excel Options”. (In previous versions of Excel, “Options” was found under the “Tools” menu.) Options are grouped together in a series of categorised tabs arranged in a column on the left of the screen. Simply click on a tab to reveal the options in that category. These options control the way in which Excel works. Let’s take a couple of examples…

The Developer Tab (which contains controls for working with macros) is not normally visible when Excel is first installed. To make it visible, choose “Excel Options” from the Office Button and activate the option “Show Developer Tab in the Ribbon” (in the “Popular” category).

Another example… By default, every new document you create has three sheets. If you find this is unnecessary, or indeed insufficient, you can change the number of sheets which each new work will contain. Again choose “Excel Options” from the Office Button and, in the section headed “When Creating New Workbooks Include this Many Sheets” (again in the “Popular” category), enter the number of sheets that you prefer each time you create a new workbook.

The Quick Access Toolbar

The Microsoft Office 2007 Quick Access Toolbar is normally displayed in the top left of the screen, next to the Office button. It has a similar format to the toolbars found in previous versions of Microsoft Excel.

By default, it contains just three tools: saving the active workbook, undoing and redoing commands.

Next to the three default buttons is a drop-down menu which enables you to customise the Quick Access Toolbar and determine which commands are visible and which commands are hidden.

Each of the options in the drop-down menu is a switch: if it’s currently active, when you choose it, it will be deactivated: choosing an inactive command will add it to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Another way of customising the Quick Access Toolbar is to add your favourite options from the various Tabs of the Microsoft Excel Ribbon. To add an option, simply right click on it. In the context menu which appears, just choose “Add To Quick Access Toolbar”. The command will then appear on the Quick Access Toolbar and can be used in the normal way.

If you find yourself using the Quick Access Toolbar frequently you may find it convenient to display it below the Excel Ribbon. To do this, simply choose “Show Below The Ribbon” from the “Customise Quick Access Toolbar” drop-down menu; and of course you always have the option of minimising the ribbon by double-clicking on the name of any Ribbon Tab.

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