Tips from the Ambrose Office Expert

Excel Hints:

Above the row header #1 and to the left of the column letter A, there's a blank spot. Click on this button and all rows and columns are selected on worksheet currently opened. Now resize column and/or row, and it changes the sheet globally.

Adjust multiple column widths with one double click:

Hold down left mouse button while dragging across the column headers (gray shaded letters). With multiple columns selected, and using mouse pointer, double click between any one of the column headers. This will adjust the widths of each selected column to the widest entry in that individual column.

Adjacent: Left click sheet tab 1, hold down the SHIFT KEY then click sheet tab 4. In this example sheets 1-4 are now linked, meaning that anything typed on these sheets will appear on all four sheets identically.

Non-adjacent: Same as Adjacent except hold down the CONTROL KEY and click on individual sheet tabs. In this example you may select sheets 1, 3, 5 to be linked.

After worksheet is complete, choose FILE then PAGE SETUP. Click on the WORKSHEET tab then click on RED BUTTON to the right of 'ROWS TO REPEAT AT TOP'. Now return to the worksheet and click on the row's) you want repeated on each printed page. This is a handy tip to use when printing out many rows of data on multiple sheets.

Here's a quick tip on using your active windows. Sometime, you'll have your students open an application, but it looks like this. Notice how the opened window is too small to see. 

Did you know Excel will produce very nice timelines? Traditional timelines with text labels and entries are relatively easy with simple text formatting options, but graphics timelines are also possible! Complete instructions on constructing timelines in Excel can be found through Microsoft's Education pages.