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Page Setup in MS Excel:............................................................................................................2

Please don’t forget this before you send any excel file to the client or for review:...................5
General Excel Tips:....................................................................................................................6
Some Excel Shortcuts:...............................................................................................................7

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Page Setup in MS Excel:

\File\Page Setup

While most of the options are self-explanatory, I would like to draw your attention to the
following settings/features:

1) Setting applies to a sheet: In Excel, every sheet has an independent page setting. To
make setting changes to multiple sheets at the same time, select multiple sheets by
keeping the ctrl key pressed and clicking on the sheet tabs one after another. To
deselect them right click at the sheet tab and click ‘ungroup sheets’ or just click on
any other sheet name.

2) Fit to page: More often than not, we find that the data required to be printed is
spilling over more than one page which usually comes to notice after the page has
been printed. To avoid this:
a. select the cells to be printed
b. click on File\Print [Ctrl+P]
c. Select ‘Selection’ [Alt+N]
d. Click on ‘Preview’ [Alt+W]
e. Click on ‘Setup’ at the top [Alt+S]
f. Select the tab: ‘Page’ [Ctrl+PgUp]
g. Select the option Fit to __ wide by __ tall (if you are unsure of the number of
pages, you may click on any higher number like fit to 1 wide by 100 tall)
h. Click OK
i. You will then notice in the preview that the data has shrunk in width or length
or both
j. If you click on setup again you will notice the % size to which the cells will be
printed.

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3) Margins: To adjust margins visually, click on print preview button , then click on

margins to be able to see the dotted lines of margins and shift them using the mouse.
These can be changed numerically, by going to File\Page Setup\Margins also

4) Headers and Footers: Can be set by clicking on File\Page Setup\Headers and

Footers or View\Headers and Footers also. There are some default ones provided by
Microsoft and some that can be created by clicking on Custom Header/Footer.

5) Rows to repeat at top and to left: (File\Page Setup\Sheet)Use this feature if you
have data that would extend over more than one page and you want the headings or
the items on the left to appear on every page to enable the reader to understand the
figures. The same effect can be obtained visually by freezing panes by going to
Window\Freeze panes

6) If you don’t want to print colours: If you have used colours in the worksheets by
filling some cells with colour but don’t want those to be printed, tick the box: black
and white that appears at File\Page Setup\Sheet

Optional:

Formatting dates, times and numbers

Date, time and currency:

Settings are done through the Control Panel\Regional Settings\Regional Options\Customise.

For example, by default, if your Excel displays date in mm/dd/yy format, you can
change it by going to the above location. You can also change the settings by going to
Format\Cells\Date or Time

Formatting numbers:

1. Thousands separator To display a comma as a thousands separator or to scale a

number by a multiple of one thousand, include a comma in the number format.
To display Use this code
12000 as 12,000 #,###
12000 as 12 #,
12200000 as 12.2 0.0,,
2. Color To set the color for a section of the format, type the name of one of the
following eight colors in square brackets in the section. The color code must be the
first item in the section.
[Black] [Blue]
[Cyan] [Green]
[Magenta] [Red]

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[White] [Yellow]
3. Conditions To set number formats that will be applied only if a number meets a
condition you specify, enclose the condition in square brackets. The condition
consists of a comparison operator (comparison operator: A sign that is used in
comparison criteria to compare two values. Operators include: = Equal to, > Greater
than, < Less than, >= Greater than or equal to, <= Less than or equal to, and <> Not
equal to.) and a value. For example, the following format displays numbers less than
or equal to 100 in a red font and numbers greater than 100 in a blue font. [Red]
[<=100];[Blue][>100]

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Please don’t forget this before you send any excel file to the client
or for review:

1) Delete all the extra rows and columns: Go to the last column used by using
Ctrl+right arrow then select the blank columns by clicking shift+ctrl+right arrow.
Then delete the columns by pressing Alt E D C Enter. Do the same with extra rows
by doing the above steps using down arrow instead of the right arrow. This reduces
the size of the file.

2) Page numbers: Ensure that the worksheets have page numbers and other appropriate
headers and footers.

3) Print Preview: Ensure that you go through the print preview and make the necessary
adjustments to ‘fit to page’, margins, etc. If the client prints your file, he should be
able to get them as you intend them.

4) Cell A1: Excel opens an ‘xls’ file with cursor at the same location on the sheet where
it was at the time of saving it. Hence it is necessary that you go to the last worksheet
in the file, keep the ctrl key pressed and then click Home, Pageup, Home, Pagup,
Home… Finally you will be on cell A1 of the first sheet which ideally should be an
index sheet to guide the client/reviewer to browse through the entire file with
minimum effort and time.

5) File name: The file name should always be saved in three parts as: Client Name,
Purpose, Month/Yr/Period under question. Eg: Pixel MIS June 06, Cohezia Final
Accounts 06-07. This has various uses.

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General Excel Tips:

1) Selection in drop-down list: To make a selection in a drop-down list, press

alt+Down arrow key. Then browse through the list by using the arrow key and press
enter to select.

2) Password: To save a file with a password, use File\Save As\Tools\General Options

3) Menu options: Usually when one clicks on a menu, the entire list of options does not
appear. There is a double arrow pointing downwards which needs to be clicked to see
all the options. To avoid this, click on Tools\ Customise\Options\Always show full
menus

4) Templates: Templates are standard files saved on your PC or on the server. The
location of the templates for all MS Office programs can be seen or modified by
opening MS Word\Tools\Options\File Locations\User or Workgroup Templates.
When you click File\New in MS Excel or Word you can use these templates by
clicking on ‘My computer’ which appears on the Task pane which appears on the
right hand side of the screen. Note: this option does not appear if you create a new
file using Ctrl+N

5) Switch between relative, absolute, and mixed references: Select the cell that
contains the formula. In the formula bar or in the formula press F4 to toggle through
the combinations ($A$1, $A1, A$1, A1)

6) Fill: If you want to break a string of text into several rows, select the cells over which
you want to fit the text and click Edit\Fill\Justify.

7) Find and replace: you can find and replace not just text in a sheet but also formats
spread over the entire workbook using Edit\Replace\Format and Options

8) Insert symbol: To insert characters like £ use Insert\Symbol\relevant font and
character. Similar for pictures, charts, etc.

9) Wrap Text: If some text does not fit within a cell you may use
Format\Cells\Alignment\Wrap Text

10) Conditional Formatting: To apply formatting to a cell depending on the criteria

specified use Format\Conditional Formatting

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Some Excel Shortcuts:

Select cells, columns, rows, or objects in worksheets and workbooks by

using shortcut keys
To Press
Select the current region around the active cell (the current
region is an area enclosed by blank rows and blank
columns) CTRL+SHIFT+* (ASTERISK)
Extend the selection by one cell SHIFT+ arrow key
Extend the selection to the last nonblank cell in the same
column or row as the active cell CTRL+SHIFT+ arrow key
Extend the selection to the beginning of the row SHIFT+HOME
Extend the selection to the beginning of the worksheet CTRL+SHIFT+HOME
Extend the selection to the last cell used on the worksheet
(lower-right corner) CTRL+SHIFT+END
Select the entire column CTRL+SPACEBAR
Select the entire row SHIFT+SPACEBAR
Select the entire worksheet CTRL+A
If multiple cells are selected, select only the active cell SHIFT+BACKSPACE
Extend the selection down one screen SHIFT+PAGE DOWN
With an object selected, select all objects on a sheet CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR

Select cells with special characteristics by using shortcut keys

To Press
Select the current region around the active cell (the current
region is an area enclosed by blank rows and blank
columns) CTRL+SHIFT+* (ASTERISK)
Select the current array, which is the array that the active
cell belongs to CTRL+/
Select all cells with comments CTRL+SHIFT+O (the letter O)
Select cells whose contents are different from the
comparison cell in each row (for each row, the comparison
cell is in the same column as the active cell) CTRL+\
Select cells whose contents are different from the
comparison cell in each column (for each column, the
comparison cell is in the same row as the active cell) CTRL+SHIFT+|
Select only cells that are directly referred to by formulas in
the selection CTRL+[
Select all cells that are directly or indirectly referred to by
formulas in the selection CTRL+SHIFT+{
Select only cells with formulas that refer directly to the
active cell CTRL+]
Select all cells with formulas that refer directly or indirectly
to the active cell CTRL+SHIFT+}
Select only visible cells in the current selection ALT+SEMICOLON

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