Topic 2: Customizing Excel

Menus

Unlike previous versions of Excel, the menus in Excel 2000 initially list only the commands you have recently used.  To view all options in each menu, click the double arrows at the bottom of the menu.  If you would like to revert to the way older versions of Excel displayed menu options, follow these steps:

1. Select View|Toolbars|Customize from the menu bar.
2. Click on the Options tab.
3. Uncheck the Menus show recently used commands first check box.
   

Toolbars

Many toolbars displaying shortcut buttons are available. Select View|Toolbars from the menu bar to select more toolbars.

Customize Toolbars

Customizing toolbars allows you to delete certain shortcut buttons from a toolbar if you do not use them and add the shortcut buttons for commands you use often.

1. Select View|Toolbars|Customize and select the Commands tab.
   
2. By clicking on the command categories in the Categories box, the commands will change in the Commands box to the right.
3. Select the command you would like to add to the toolbar by selecting it from the Commands box.
4. Drag the command with the mouse to the desired location on the toolbar and release the mouse button. The shortcut button should now appear on the toolbar.
5. Remove buttons from the toolbars by reversing these steps. Highlight the button on the toolbar, drag it off the toolbar with the mouse, and release the mouse button.
   

Recording A Macro

Macros can speed up any common editing sequence you may execute in an Excel spreadsheet. In this example we will make a simple macro that will set all the margins on the page to one inch.

1. Click Tools|Macro|Record New Macro from the menu bar.
   
2. Name the macro in the Macro name field. The name cannot contain spaces and must not begin with a number.
3. If you would like to assign a shortcut key to the macro for easy use, enter the letter under Shortcut key. Enter a lower case letter to make a CTRL+number shortcut and enter an upper case letter to assign a CTRL+SHIFT+number shortcut key. If you select a shortcut key that Excel already uses, your macro will overwrite that function.
4. Select an option from the Store macro in drop-down menu.
5. Enter a description of the macro in the Description field. This is for your reference only so you remember what the macro does.
6. Click OK when you are ready to start recording.
7. Select options from the drop down menus and Excel will record the options you choose from the dialog boxes, such as changing the margins on the Page Setup window. Select File|Page Setup and change all the margins to 1". Press OK. Replace this step with whatever commands you want your macro to execute. Select only options that modify the worksheet. Toggle actions such as View|Toolbars that have no effect on the worksheet will not be recorded.
   
8. Click the Stop button the recording toolbar. The macro is now saved.

Running A Macro

1. To run a macro you have created, select Tools|Macro|Macros from the menu bar.
2. From the Macros window, highlight the Macro name in the list and click Run.
   
3. If the macro is long and you want to stop it while it is running, press BREAK (hold CTRL and press PAUSE).