Excel Environment – setting it up in Excel to save you time

Excel Environment – setting it up in Excel to personalise the experience you have

This week’s hint and tip is about setting up the ‘Excel Environment’. This is on our Basic Excel training course and covers several​ options you can use to set it up. We are going to go through a few here that you can use on your computer.

QAT (Quick Access Toolbar) & creating your own Tab

First is the QAT (Quick Access Toolbar) within Excel. This little toolbar is found in the top left hand side of your screen within Excel. It is a feature that has been around for many years. Quite a few people use this toolbar but many don’t know they can customise it to their needs. You can add commands within Excel to this toolbar for quick and easy access to save you time flicking through multiple tabs.

Although the QAT is very useful, there is only so much space up there in the top left hand corner. So the next option we go through is creating your own Tab! This gives you a ‘much bigger QAT’ and allows you to create your own Tab with groups to add commands under. This is found by right hand clicking on a blank part of the ribbon and select ‘customise the ribbon’.

Splitting Your Screen

Finally we look at splitting your computer screen. This isn’t Excel specific and so can be used in any package or program on your computer. This is a keyboard shortcut that allows you to split the screen with the window you have open with another open window. This allows you to have the 2 windows open but evenly split in half.

The video below shows you how to set up the ‘Excel Environment’ on your computer. These options can enable you to save time in your day to day use of it.

Take a look below at the video to find out more and then try it out on your own computer!