Microsoft Excel Tutorial:
The Action Pen has been in PowerPoint and Word, but it just came to Excel for Office Insiders. With the Action Pen, you can use a tablet or a mouse to hand-write data in Excel cells and the Action Pen will convert your handwriting to text. Also in this video: a recap of some other inking features in Office.
Table of Contents
(0:00) Intro to video
(0:20) Writing values to Excel cells with the Action Pen
(1:15) Summing cells with Alt+Equals
(1:25) Selecting multiple cells by circling them
(1:40) Overwriting a value in a cell
(2:00) Deleting a cell by crossing out.
(2:30) Writing text in a cell
(2:50) New pen colors
(3:05) Creating perfect shapes with ink using Ink To Shape
(3:35) Ink to Math
(3:40) Point eraser in PowerPoint
(4:02) What if the Draw toolbar is missing?
(4:09) Please subscribe
(4:21) Wrap-up
(4:28) Sample of the Gel Pen colors
The Action Pen has been in PowerPoint and Word, but it just came to Excel for Office Insiders. With the Action Pen, you can use a tablet or a mouse to hand-write data in Excel cells and the Action Pen will convert your handwriting to text. Also in this video: a recap of some other inking features in Office.
Table of Contents
(0:00) Intro to video
(0:20) Writing values to Excel cells with the Action Pen
(1:15) Summing cells with Alt+Equals
(1:25) Selecting multiple cells by circling them
(1:40) Overwriting a value in a cell
(2:00) Deleting a cell by crossing out.
(2:30) Writing text in a cell
(2:50) New pen colors
(3:05) Creating perfect shapes with ink using Ink To Shape
(3:35) Ink to Math
(3:40) Point eraser in PowerPoint
(4:02) What if the Draw toolbar is missing?
(4:09) Please subscribe
(4:21) Wrap-up
(4:28) Sample of the Gel Pen colors
Transcript of the video:
Learn Excel from MrExcel Episode 2369.
Hand-write your cells with the Action Pen.
Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast. I am Bill Jelen.
I just discovered this one. It is not even in the Office documentation yet.
It has been in Word and PowerPoint.
Brand new to Excel. There is a new pen on the Draw tab called the Action Pen.
You can use the Action Pen to enter data by handwriting.
Let's try it out. Click the Action Pen.
We are put into Draw mode.
Down here in the Zoom in the right hand corner, you are automatically set to 400%.
Very carefully with the mouse, I will write 123.
When I quite writing, they evaluate my handwriting and type 123!
This would be great on a tablet where you did not want to use the little pop-up keyboard.
It works fairly well. I am impressed at their ability to recognize my handwriting.
Eight. Nine. Zero.
The one thing that I find annoying is that I try to select a cell but I am still in drawing mode.
So if you click and get that dot, they evaluate that as nothing.
You have to remember to get out of drawing mode if you want to do something.
Like Alt+Equals to sum the column.
There are a couple of cool tricks with the Action Pen.
If you want to select a few cells, draw a circle around the cells to select them.
Then you can use the Mini Toolbar to, for example, change the font color.
You can also overwrite things. If the 123 needs to be 234.
First, select the cell.
Go back into Draw mode and write 234.
It will overwrite that cell.
Cool. That works great.
You can get rid of a cell by crossing it out.
It took a long time for me to get the hang of this.
If you don't cross out the whole cell, Excel interprets it as a minus sign.
If you cross out all of the words in the cell like that.
Then it will simply press Delete.
If you want to get rid of just one word, that is not supported yet.
You will get the minus sign.
Does it work with words?
Yes, indeed.
The next time you find your keyboard broken or you are stuck on a tablet computer.
And you don't want to use the little pop-up on-screen keyboard, this is a cool way to go. The team that manages Draw for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, They have been doing some nice improvements.
They have added some new pen colors here.
Like gel pens with colors like Galaxy and Lava.
In general, with ink, you are simply scribbling.
One cool feature is Ink to Shape.
It does not work retroactively. You have to choose Ink to Shape first.
Draw a square and they will convert it to a square.
Or a circle.
Triangle.
Oval.
Maybe a parallelogram.
That has been around for a while.
The Ink to Math. I am not a fan of this. There is an old video.
It shows ink to math. It creates an equation that you can't do anything with.
Some apps, such as PowerPoint, now have the ability under the eraser to to do a Point Eraser. This allows you to erase one bit of the drawing.
This is not yet in Excel.
Touch anywhere in the drawing and the whole drawing disappears.
This will be nice when this comes to Excel.
If you don't have the Draw toolbar, it is really easy.
Right-click the Ribbon.
Choose Customize the Ribbon.
Over on the right, choose Draw and Click OK.
It is Labor Day in the United States. I saw this new tool and wanted to make sure you knew it first.
Click Like, Subscribe, and Ring that Bell.
Feel free to post any questions or comments in the YouTube comments below.
I want to thank you for stopping by. We will see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Hand-write your cells with the Action Pen.
Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast. I am Bill Jelen.
I just discovered this one. It is not even in the Office documentation yet.
It has been in Word and PowerPoint.
Brand new to Excel. There is a new pen on the Draw tab called the Action Pen.
You can use the Action Pen to enter data by handwriting.
Let's try it out. Click the Action Pen.
We are put into Draw mode.
Down here in the Zoom in the right hand corner, you are automatically set to 400%.
Very carefully with the mouse, I will write 123.
When I quite writing, they evaluate my handwriting and type 123!
This would be great on a tablet where you did not want to use the little pop-up keyboard.
It works fairly well. I am impressed at their ability to recognize my handwriting.
Eight. Nine. Zero.
The one thing that I find annoying is that I try to select a cell but I am still in drawing mode.
So if you click and get that dot, they evaluate that as nothing.
You have to remember to get out of drawing mode if you want to do something.
Like Alt+Equals to sum the column.
There are a couple of cool tricks with the Action Pen.
If you want to select a few cells, draw a circle around the cells to select them.
Then you can use the Mini Toolbar to, for example, change the font color.
You can also overwrite things. If the 123 needs to be 234.
First, select the cell.
Go back into Draw mode and write 234.
It will overwrite that cell.
Cool. That works great.
You can get rid of a cell by crossing it out.
It took a long time for me to get the hang of this.
If you don't cross out the whole cell, Excel interprets it as a minus sign.
If you cross out all of the words in the cell like that.
Then it will simply press Delete.
If you want to get rid of just one word, that is not supported yet.
You will get the minus sign.
Does it work with words?
Yes, indeed.
The next time you find your keyboard broken or you are stuck on a tablet computer.
And you don't want to use the little pop-up on-screen keyboard, this is a cool way to go. The team that manages Draw for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, They have been doing some nice improvements.
They have added some new pen colors here.
Like gel pens with colors like Galaxy and Lava.
In general, with ink, you are simply scribbling.
One cool feature is Ink to Shape.
It does not work retroactively. You have to choose Ink to Shape first.
Draw a square and they will convert it to a square.
Or a circle.
Triangle.
Oval.
Maybe a parallelogram.
That has been around for a while.
The Ink to Math. I am not a fan of this. There is an old video.
It shows ink to math. It creates an equation that you can't do anything with.
Some apps, such as PowerPoint, now have the ability under the eraser to to do a Point Eraser. This allows you to erase one bit of the drawing.
This is not yet in Excel.
Touch anywhere in the drawing and the whole drawing disappears.
This will be nice when this comes to Excel.
If you don't have the Draw toolbar, it is really easy.
Right-click the Ribbon.
Choose Customize the Ribbon.
Over on the right, choose Draw and Click OK.
It is Labor Day in the United States. I saw this new tool and wanted to make sure you knew it first.
Click Like, Subscribe, and Ring that Bell.
Feel free to post any questions or comments in the YouTube comments below.
I want to thank you for stopping by. We will see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
