Excel Command Ribbon
What Is The Command Ribbon?
The Ribbon is Excel’s command menu interface. It organizes commonly
used actions together in an intuitive and visual way. These are the main
parts of the Ribbon.
1. Tabs organize related groups of commands together.
2. Groups organize related commands together.
3. Command Buttons allows you to perform actions or open menus
with further related actions.
4. Command Menu some command buttons will have a small down
arrow located to the right or below the button. This indicates that a
menu is available with sub-commands under the command button.
5. Dialog Box certain groups in the ribbon will contain a small icon in
the lower right hand corner that will launch a dialog box with further
options available.
6. Pin or Unpin Toggle allows you to remove the ribbon from view to
create more workbook space.
What Tabs Are In The Ribbon?
There are 7 Tabs in Excel’s default setup.
1. Home contains commands related to creating, formatting, and editing
a spreadsheet.
2. Insert contains commands related to adding items to a spreadsheet
such as graphics, tables, pivot tables, charts, headers and footers,
hyperlinks etc…
3. Page Layout contains commands related to printing a spreadsheet.
4. Fomulas contains commands related to adding and error checking
formulas in a spreadsheet.
5. Data contains commands related to importing and querying data in
a spreadsheet.
6. Review contains commands related to proof reading, commenting,
protecting or tracking changes in the spreadsheet.
7. View contains commands related to the display area of a
spreadsheet.
In addition to these 7 Tabs, there is an 8th one called the Developer tab
that is hidden by default. The Developer tab contains commands related to
recording macros and writing visual basic for application (VBA) code. This
tab is hidden by default as most people will likely never want or need to use
it.
Excel also has Contextual Tabs. These tabs only appear when a particular
type of object is selected in the worksheet. For example, if we select a table
object in our workbook, the Table Tools Design tab will appear which
contains commands only related to tables.
Selecting Commands From The Ribbon Using
Keyboard Shortcuts
Commands can be accessed in the regular way by using the mouse or by
touch on touch screen devices, but they can also be accessed
with keyboard shortcuts. To use any command in the ribbon with a
keyboard shortcut, start by pressing the Alt key. This will display letters
underneath the tabs that represent the next step in the shortcut. If we
wanted to use a command in the Home tab we would press H next. Now
each command in the ribbon will have a letter(s) or number next to it again
representing the next step in the shortcut. If we wanted to perform
the indent command, we would press 6 on the keyboard. Every command
is accessible in this way, but some of the most used commands in Excel
have much simpler keyboard shortcuts in addition to these. For Example,
using this method to access the bold command results in Alt + H + 1, but it
also has the much easier to execute and remember shortcut Ctrl + B.