Hands on: Explore the Excel Status bar

The whole idea of the Status Bar at the bottom of the Excel screen has always been to keep you informed of where you are. To display it, choose Status Bar on the View menu. At the left it usually says Ready. If you start entering anything in a cell it will say Enter. If you click in the Formula Bar, or click in a cell and press F2, it will read Edit. Beyond that, Excel 4 only gave you up to seven messages. They are still extant.

There is ADD. If you highlight a range of cells and want to add other ranges or single cells to that range for calculation purposes you can press Shift & F8 and the ranges of cells can be added. To close ADD mode you press Shift & F8 again. To accomplish the same thing most people today would just press Ctrl and click on the cells to be added.

EXT is a variation of this. Highlight a range, press F8, click on a cell away from the range and that cell will be added to the range. For example, if you click on cell B2 and press F8 you can then click on cell C10 and the range B2:C10 will be highlighted. Press F8 again to deselect it. Again this has fallen into disuse as most people would hold down Shift and click on cells B2 and C10 to do the same thing.

NUM tells you if the Number Lock key is on. If it is, the keypad keys on the right-hand side of a normal keyboard produce numbers. Press the Number Lock key once and those keys control movement. In this alternate mode, press 8 and the cell focus goes up. Press 2 and it goes down. By default these days the Number Lock key is usually on and people use the arrow keys or the mouse for moving around the worksheet.

FIX is very useful when you’re entering money amounts in a hurry. To turn it on choose Tools, Options, Edit, Fixed Decimal. (In Excel 2007, Office, Excel Options, Advanced, Editing Options, Automatically insert a decimal point, OK). If you enter 12345 in a cell it will record and display 123.45.

OVR board
OVR substitutes new entries for old. Click on a cell and press F2 to edit in a cell, or click in the Formula Bar to edit the cell there, then press the Insert key. When you enter anything it will replace the existing entry rather than add to it. Normal activity is resumed when the next cell is chosen, unlike in Word where you have to press Insert again to stop overtyping.

SCRL just indicates when the Scroll Lock key has been pressed. If you press an arrow key the focus is fixed to a cell while the screen scrolls. Press the Scroll Lock key again and normal service is resumed. The worksheet remains still and the focus moves to the next cell.

CAPS simply indicates when the Caps Lock key is on. If you type smith when the Caps Lock key has been pressed Excel will record and display SMITH.

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