This netcast has a couple of tips from Tools - Options - General. First, learn how to control the number of worksheets in your new workbooks. Second, learn how to increase the number of files in your recently used file list. Plus a sneak peak in Episode 421 of how the Recently Used File List is improved in Excel 2007.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
I want to talk about some of the simple settings you can take care of in Excel 2003 to make your life a little bit easier.
I have Excel 2003 here, I'm going to click the new workbook icon and you'll see that I get three sheets: Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3.
This is Excel’s default and how many times do you get an Excel workbook, where someone has filled in Sheet1, and Sheet2 and Sheet3 are completely blank?
It's kind of crazy to always have those two blank sheets out there.
I remember back in the 90’s, when they first came up with multiple sheets in a workbook, they put 16 worksheets in every workbook.
People would send me a workbook with one sheet filled out and the other 15 sheets completely blank.
To take care of this, go to Tools, Options.
The Options dialog is one of the worst dialogues in Excel, because there's 13 different tabs.
We want the General tab and there's a setting here called Sheets in new workbook.
Change that to 1 and then every new workbook that you create will only have one worksheet.
Great way to save space if you're regularly creating workbooks with only one worksheet.
And hey, if you need more worksheets, you can always just use the Insert menu, Insert Worksheet to add more worksheets to the workbook.
Another setting that’s interesting here on the General tab, is called the Recently used file list.
This initially starts out showing the last 4 files at the bottom of your file menu.
So there's the last 4 files, so that I open, it's possible to kick this up to nine.
I go to Tools, Options, there's a spin button there, Recently used file list, I can kick that up to 9 and at least see the last 9 files that they open.
Now I realize it's not an Excel 2007 Tuesday or Thursday, but I want to show you a huge improvement that they made to the Recently used file list in excel 2007.
The Recently used file list in excel 2007 can handle up to 50 different files and they have this great new feature called pin to list.
So if there's one file that you regularly use and you always want it to be in your Recently used file list, you can come over here to the thumbtack, click the thumbtack and Excel has now pinned that item to the list.
No matter how many other files you open up, that particular file will always be on the list.
To unpin it, just click it again and the pin basically becomes grayed out.
So there's files you use all the time, pin them to the list, of course that's just in Excel 2007, but back in Excel 2003 through excel ’97, you can still go into Tools, Options, General and change the Recently used file list to show at least 9 files instead of the default 4.
Hey, thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another podcast from MrExcel.
I want to talk about some of the simple settings you can take care of in Excel 2003 to make your life a little bit easier.
I have Excel 2003 here, I'm going to click the new workbook icon and you'll see that I get three sheets: Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3.
This is Excel’s default and how many times do you get an Excel workbook, where someone has filled in Sheet1, and Sheet2 and Sheet3 are completely blank?
It's kind of crazy to always have those two blank sheets out there.
I remember back in the 90’s, when they first came up with multiple sheets in a workbook, they put 16 worksheets in every workbook.
People would send me a workbook with one sheet filled out and the other 15 sheets completely blank.
To take care of this, go to Tools, Options.
The Options dialog is one of the worst dialogues in Excel, because there's 13 different tabs.
We want the General tab and there's a setting here called Sheets in new workbook.
Change that to 1 and then every new workbook that you create will only have one worksheet.
Great way to save space if you're regularly creating workbooks with only one worksheet.
And hey, if you need more worksheets, you can always just use the Insert menu, Insert Worksheet to add more worksheets to the workbook.
Another setting that’s interesting here on the General tab, is called the Recently used file list.
This initially starts out showing the last 4 files at the bottom of your file menu.
So there's the last 4 files, so that I open, it's possible to kick this up to nine.
I go to Tools, Options, there's a spin button there, Recently used file list, I can kick that up to 9 and at least see the last 9 files that they open.
Now I realize it's not an Excel 2007 Tuesday or Thursday, but I want to show you a huge improvement that they made to the Recently used file list in excel 2007.
The Recently used file list in excel 2007 can handle up to 50 different files and they have this great new feature called pin to list.
So if there's one file that you regularly use and you always want it to be in your Recently used file list, you can come over here to the thumbtack, click the thumbtack and Excel has now pinned that item to the list.
No matter how many other files you open up, that particular file will always be on the list.
To unpin it, just click it again and the pin basically becomes grayed out.
So there's files you use all the time, pin them to the list, of course that's just in Excel 2007, but back in Excel 2003 through excel ’97, you can still go into Tools, Options, General and change the Recently used file list to show at least 9 files instead of the default 4.
Hey, thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another podcast from MrExcel.
