Datasheet

Understanding Excel’s Interface
7
When you are not using the task pane, you can click the X in the upper-right corner to close
it and have more room on your screen. If you want it back, just choose View 
Task Pane.
Also, some commands (like Insert 
Picture  Clip Art and File  New) will bring the task
pane back automatically when you need it. After you’ve explored the various task panes, click
the X in the task panes upper-right corner to close it.
Workbook Components
In Excel, you do data entry, formatting, and computing within what is called a worksheet
(commonly referred to as a sheet) . One or more worksheets within a single Excel file create a
workbook , which is what an Excel file is called. Think of the workbook as the manila folder
in your file cabinet and the worksheets as the invoices, inventory lists, customer information
sheets, and so forth that are included in the manila folder. Look at the bottom of your Excel
screen; see the tabs that say Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3? By default, Excel includes three sheets
in a new workbook (see Figure 1.2), but you can create more, as I’ll explain later in the section
“Organizing Worksheets.”
You can use these sheets to organize data that belongs in one workbook but has differing
types of information and, therefore, should not be included in one worksheet. An example is
a workbook you make for one particular company, including individual worksheets for inven-
tory lists, sales records, and customer information. You can also use worksheets to organize
similar information—creating a separate sheet for each month of the year in a yearly sales
workbook, for example.
In Figure 1.2 notice that there are
tab scrolling buttons to the left of the sheet tabs. You can
click these buttons to move through the sheets when you have so many tabs that you can’t view
them all at one time.
Clipboard This pane allows you to see up to 24 items stored in your Clipboard
when you copy or cut data.
New Workbook You use this pane when you create a new blank workbook or want to
start a new workbook based on a template.
Shared Workspace/
Document Updates
Use these panes when you want to create a workspace for multiple
users.
XML Source This pane is for viewing Extensible Markup Language (XML) maps.
TABLE 1.1 Elements of the Task Pane (continued)
Task Pane Purpose
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