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Frisco, CO, United States
Hi, I'm Joel Levy owner of PC Applications. I have been providing quality Windows and MS Office Training and Consulting services to Central Colorado for over 16 Years. I have been specifically teaching computer classes since 1993 and bring incredible enthusiasm in a relaxed, laid back style that makes the learning fun and enjoyable. My personable teaching style makes it easy to understand concepts of how the software works, not just what buttons to click. My experience in working with Windows and ALL of the MS Office Applications at ALL levels allows me to explain things from a broad perspective comparing and contrasting MS Office features. Check out our website www.pcapplications.com

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Autocalculate in Excel, You just have to look!

Hello Again and OOOH My, it's August, I have been enjoying summer in the Colorado Rockies and hope your summer has been good as well.  So following the laid back attitude, I thought I would discuss a feature that is so "laid back" you don't really have to do anything except look.

I am always suprised as to what people don't see in the application window, usually due to their focus being on a specific area of the screen/window and not really "looking around" to just see what's happening in the window as they are working with the application.  When I point out specific things that are happening or things that are just there to see (if you look at it) to someone during a training/consulting session, commonly they remark "has that always been there?!"  And of course they are suprised to hear YES and as a matter of fact in some cases "this feature has been in many prior versions."

A classic example of this is the Autocalculate feature of Excel; this is not new and has been a feature of Excel for quite a while.

In a workbook for example select a range of cells containing values.  Look at the right section of the Status Bar (the bar at the bottom of the Excel window), you should see Sum= and the sum of the values in the Range.  In Excel 2007/2010 (as well as earlier vesions) right click the Status Bar and you will be presented a shortcut menu with many options as what to show in the Status Bar.  Notice the second segment from the bottom is a list of 6 functions which can be turned on/off.  Which ever of the 6 functions you turn on, the results will be in the Status Bar upon selecting a range of data.  Notice there is a Count function that will apply to Text data.  As per above, I find many people even after working for years in Excel never knew about this feature and never saw it because they just never looked to see.

So now I guess we can call this a 'quick look' feature now that we know to look.  "I see said the blind man..."

Have fun in the meantime until next time!  Joel
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