simply not up to the task. To make up the difference, Excel first doubles the letters in the cell’s column reference so that column AA follows column Z (after which you find column AB, AC, and so on) and then triples them so that column AAA follows column ZZ (after which you get column AAB, AAC, and the like). At the end of this letter tripling, the 16,384th and last column of the worksheet ends up being XFD, so that the last cell in the 1,048,576th row has the cell address XFD1048576.
The Worksheet area is where most of the Excel spreadsheet action takes place because it displays the cells in different sections of the current worksheet. Also, inside the cells is where you do all of your spreadsheet data entry and formatting, not to mention the majority of your editing.
Keep in mind that for you to be able to enter or edit data in a cell, that cell must be current. Excel indicates that a cell is current in three ways:
✔ The cell cursor or pointer – the dark green border surrounding the cell’s entire perimeter – appears in the cell.
✔ The address of the cell appears in the Name box of the Formula bar.
✔ The current cell’s column letter(s) and row number are shaded (in an orange color on most monitors) in the column headings and row headings that appear at the top and left of the Worksheet area, respectively.
Moving around the worksheet
Each Excel worksheet contains far too many columns and rows for all of its cells to be displayed at one time. (It’s true: 17,179,869,184 cell totals equal an illegible black blob, regardless of the size of your monitor.) Excel offers many methods for moving the cell cursor around the worksheet to the cell where you want to enter new data or edit existing data:
✔ Click the desired cell – assuming that the cell is displayed within the section of the sheet currently visible in the Worksheet area.
✔ Click the Name box, type the address of the desired cell directly into this box, and then press the Enter key.
✔ Press Alt+HFDG, Ctrl+G or F5 to open the Go To dialog box, type the address of the desired cell into its Reference text box, and then click OK.
✔ Use the cursor keys, as shown in Table 1-1, to move the cell cursor to the desired cell.
✔ Use the horizontal and vertical scroll bars at the bottom and right edges of the Worksheet area to move the part of the worksheet that contains the desired cell. Then click the cell to put the cell cursor in it.
Table 1-1 Keystrokes for Moving the Cell Cursor
Note: In the case of those keystrokes that use arrow keys, you must either use the arrows on the cursor keypad or have the Num Lock key disengaged on the numeric keypad of your keyboard.
Keystroke shortcuts for moving the cell cursor
Excel offers a wide variety of keystrokes for moving the cell cursor to a new cell. When you use one of these keystrokes, the program automatically scrolls a new part of the worksheet into view, if this is required to move the cell pointer. In Table 1-1, I summarize these keystrokes and how far each one moves the cell cursor from its starting position.
The keystrokes that combine the Ctrl or End key with an arrow key (listed in Table 1-1) are among the most helpful for moving quickly from one edge to the other in large tables of cell entries. Moving from table to table in a section of the worksheet that contains many blocks of cells is also much easier.
When you use Ctrl and an arrow key to move from edge to edge in a table or between tables in a worksheet on a physical keyboard, you hold down Ctrl while you press one of the four arrow keys (indicated by the + symbol in keystrokes, such as Ctrl+→). On the Touch keyboard, you tap Ctrl and then tap the appropriate arrow key to accomplish the same thing.
When you use End and an arrow-key alternative, you must press and then release the End key before you press the arrow key (indicated by the comma in keystrokes, such as End, →). Pressing and releasing the End key causes the END MODE indicator to appear onscreen in the status bar. This is your sign that Excel is ready for you to press one of the four arrow keys.
Because you can keep the Ctrl key depressed as you press the different arrow keys that you need to use, the Ctrl-plus-arrow key method provides a more fluid method for navigating blocks of cells on a physical keyboard than the End-then-arrow key method. On the Touch keyboard, there is essentially no difference in technique.
You can use the Scroll Lock key to “freeze” the position of the cell pointer in the worksheet so that you can scroll new areas of the worksheet in view with keystrokes such as PgUp (Page Up) and PgDn (Page Down) without changing the cell pointer’s original position (in essence, making these keystrokes work in the same manner as the scroll bars).
After engaging Scroll Lock (often abbreviated ScrLk), when you scroll the worksheet with the keyboard, Excel does not select a new cell while it brings a new section of the worksheet into view. To “unfreeze” the cell pointer when scrolling the worksheet via the keyboard, you just press the Scroll Lock key again.
Tips on using the scroll bars
To understand how scrolling works in Excel, imagine the worksheet is a humongous papyrus scroll attached to rollers on the left and right. To bring into view a new section of a papyrus worksheet that is hidden on the right, you crank the left roller until the section with the cells that you want to see appears. Likewise, to scroll into view a new section of the worksheet that is hidden on the left, you crank the right roller until that section of cells appears.
You can use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the Worksheet area to scroll back and forth through the columns of a worksheet. Likewise, you can use the vertical scroll bar to scroll up and down through its rows. To scroll one column or a row at a time in a particular direction, click the appropriate scroll arrow at the ends of the scroll bar. To jump immediately back to the originally displayed area of the worksheet after scrolling through single columns or rows in this fashion, simply click the darker area in the scroll bar that now appears in front of or after the scroll bar.
You can resize the horizontal scroll bar, making it wider or narrower, by dragging the button that appears to the immediate left of its left scroll arrow. When working in a workbook that contains a whole bunch of worksheets, in widening the horizontal scroll bar you can end up hiding the display of the workbook’s later sheet tabs.
To scroll very quickly through columns or rows of the worksheet, hold down the Shift key and then drag the mouse pointer in the appropriate direction within the scroll bar until the columns or rows that you want to see appear on the screen in the Worksheet area. When you hold down the Shift key as you scroll, the scroll button within the scroll bar becomes really narrow, and a ScreenTip appears next to the scroll bar, keeping you informed of the letter(s) of the columns or the numbers of the rows that you’re currently whizzing through.
If your mouse has a wheel, you can use it to scroll directly through the columns and rows of the worksheet without using the horizontal or vertical scroll bars. Simply position the white-cross mouse pointer in the center of the Worksheet area and then hold down the wheel button of the mouse. When the mouse pointer changes to a four-point arrow, drag the mouse pointer in the appropriate direction (left and right to scroll through columns or up and down to scroll through rows) until the desired column or row comes into view in the Worksheet area.
