I have two great things to report about Excel. First, the old Tool Tabs in the Ribbon have become smaller. I love the new style and it makes perfect sense. Second, I have a bit of a rant about the questionable Microsoft Search box that is now dominating the Title Bar in Excel. Who is using this? Why are they making it so large? Great news part 2: If you plan to never use the Search box, minimize it to a tiny icon.
Transcript of the video:
Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast episode 2279. Minimize the search box and smaller tool tabs.
Hey welcome back to MrExcel netcast. I’m Bill Jelen. I have great, great news today.
Two things that I just absolutely love that just came out to Office 365 Office Insiders.
First thing I want to talk about is these things that are called tool tabs.
These are the transient tabs, the tabs that come and go and back in Excel 2013, that’s where these screenshots are from, and we might have had something called table tools design on two rows which is just terrible.
And now they’ve shortened that, that it’s just table design, alright. One row, doesn’t take up two rows anymore which is great.
And here, if I click inside of a pivot table, we used to have pivot table tools analyze and design.
And now they just simplified it to pivot table analyze.
Beautiful and then design or even, let’s go to a pivot chart where we used to have three analyze design and format, we now have pivot chart analyze, design and format. And I think that’s brilliant.
It makes perfect sense and it’s less space up there. I love this.
And the best one, actually, I think they should all fall is it used to be slicer tools options.
If I choose slicer, it’s just called slicer. That’s all we need.
You know, this shouldn’t be called shape format, this should just be called shape and this should just be called picture. Alright.
So, kudos, Microsoft.
This was brilliant, make it even shorter, you know, you don’t need to be so verbose.
We don’t need all those words, just picture, that would be just fine. Alright. So that’s great news one.
Now, we’re going to step away from great news here for a second. This box, the search box used to be called, tell me.
I press Alt Q to get there.
What is this? It’s not fine and look, it’s offering me the Insert a Power View Report. Power View? Are you serious? Excel 2013 is Throwback Thursday.
I mean, who uses Power View anymore? It’s not even in the ribbon.
Alright, here’s another one.
On the data tab, we have a command called, Text to Columns, alright. And let’s say I’m just too lazy to click on the data tab.
So I press Alt Q to go open a search box and I search for text to columns.
And they actually offer me the right thing but they call it convert text to table. What? I don’t even recognize it.
The first time I recorded the podcast, I skipped right over it, it didn’t show up.
But then I started to look for other things like split columns and that same weird command kept coming up, convert text to table. And sure enough, that was convert text to columns wizard.
Why did they call it convert text to table? And I said, “Okay, well that’s interesting”.
I did search for split and they came up with the right command even though they didn’t call it the right thing.
Let me try Alt Q and searched for parse, that’s another word for split and I think I misspelled paste and they offered me a dictionary definition of parse to analyze the sentence into it parts but they don’t tell me how to parse.
In theory, this thing should be useful to get to things that are not in the ribbon.
You should be able to go to anything, commands not in the ribbon, type that command and have it pop up. But the ones I tried like calculator, Alt Q, nothing. 5-Point star.
Okay, well they did get that one that it’s a shape but they gave me the whole gallery of shapes instead of getting me directly to the 5-Point star.
How about close all, that’s one that I use a lot. Not there.
My disappointment with this search box just is monumental.
I was disappointed when tell me showed up in Excel 2013 and well, it’s changed. I’m not sure I’m ever going to use it.
Here is the great news.
Just yesterday in the version that came out to Office Insiders File, Options, General, fifth item, collapse the Microsoft search box by default, click okay, that search box goes away, it becomes a tiny little icon up here.
I can still press Alt Q if for some reason I would need a standing ovation.
Hey, if you like these tips, please click Subscribe and don’t forget to ring that bell. Feel free to post any questions or comments down in the comments below.
I want to thank you for stopping by, we’ll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Hey welcome back to MrExcel netcast. I’m Bill Jelen. I have great, great news today.
Two things that I just absolutely love that just came out to Office 365 Office Insiders.
First thing I want to talk about is these things that are called tool tabs.
These are the transient tabs, the tabs that come and go and back in Excel 2013, that’s where these screenshots are from, and we might have had something called table tools design on two rows which is just terrible.
And now they’ve shortened that, that it’s just table design, alright. One row, doesn’t take up two rows anymore which is great.
And here, if I click inside of a pivot table, we used to have pivot table tools analyze and design.
And now they just simplified it to pivot table analyze.
Beautiful and then design or even, let’s go to a pivot chart where we used to have three analyze design and format, we now have pivot chart analyze, design and format. And I think that’s brilliant.
It makes perfect sense and it’s less space up there. I love this.
And the best one, actually, I think they should all fall is it used to be slicer tools options.
If I choose slicer, it’s just called slicer. That’s all we need.
You know, this shouldn’t be called shape format, this should just be called shape and this should just be called picture. Alright.
So, kudos, Microsoft.
This was brilliant, make it even shorter, you know, you don’t need to be so verbose.
We don’t need all those words, just picture, that would be just fine. Alright. So that’s great news one.
Now, we’re going to step away from great news here for a second. This box, the search box used to be called, tell me.
I press Alt Q to get there.
What is this? It’s not fine and look, it’s offering me the Insert a Power View Report. Power View? Are you serious? Excel 2013 is Throwback Thursday.
I mean, who uses Power View anymore? It’s not even in the ribbon.
Alright, here’s another one.
On the data tab, we have a command called, Text to Columns, alright. And let’s say I’m just too lazy to click on the data tab.
So I press Alt Q to go open a search box and I search for text to columns.
And they actually offer me the right thing but they call it convert text to table. What? I don’t even recognize it.
The first time I recorded the podcast, I skipped right over it, it didn’t show up.
But then I started to look for other things like split columns and that same weird command kept coming up, convert text to table. And sure enough, that was convert text to columns wizard.
Why did they call it convert text to table? And I said, “Okay, well that’s interesting”.
I did search for split and they came up with the right command even though they didn’t call it the right thing.
Let me try Alt Q and searched for parse, that’s another word for split and I think I misspelled paste and they offered me a dictionary definition of parse to analyze the sentence into it parts but they don’t tell me how to parse.
In theory, this thing should be useful to get to things that are not in the ribbon.
You should be able to go to anything, commands not in the ribbon, type that command and have it pop up. But the ones I tried like calculator, Alt Q, nothing. 5-Point star.
Okay, well they did get that one that it’s a shape but they gave me the whole gallery of shapes instead of getting me directly to the 5-Point star.
How about close all, that’s one that I use a lot. Not there.
My disappointment with this search box just is monumental.
I was disappointed when tell me showed up in Excel 2013 and well, it’s changed. I’m not sure I’m ever going to use it.
Here is the great news.
Just yesterday in the version that came out to Office Insiders File, Options, General, fifth item, collapse the Microsoft search box by default, click okay, that search box goes away, it becomes a tiny little icon up here.
I can still press Alt Q if for some reason I would need a standing ovation.
Hey, if you like these tips, please click Subscribe and don’t forget to ring that bell. Feel free to post any questions or comments down in the comments below.
I want to thank you for stopping by, we’ll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
