EXCEL ENVIRONMENT
The Excel environment is designed to more closely reflect the way people generally work with
the Excel program. The elements in Excel are listed in the table below. The goal of the Excel
interface is to make working with a workbook more intuitive. The Live Preview feature shows
the formatting changes in the window. Just move the mouse pointer over the command and the
format will display in the window.
Tell Me
File Tab
Quick Access Toolbar
Title Bar
Name Box Ribbon
Dialog Box Launcher
Formula Bar
Sheet Scroll Buttons
Sheet Tab
Workspace (Workbook Window)
New Sheet Status Bar View Shortcuts Zoom Controls
Window Element Description
Dialog Box Launcher When this button is clicked, a dialog box containing more commands
for that particular group will display.
File Tab This tab is located in the upper left corner of the window. Contained
within this tab are commands for managing Excel workbooks as a
whole. For instance, this is the area where the Print, Save, Save As,
Open, and Close options are located. It also contains the link to the
Excel Options area, where global changes to the Excel program can be
made.
Formula Bar The formula bar is used to display the data that is being input into a
worksheet cell before it is entered into the worksheet.
Tell Me This Option is used to obtain help regarding a particular command. To
get help, just start typing to bring information about features to your
fingertips.
Name Box This is the box where the cell names are located. When named ranges
are created, they can be accessed by clicking the arrow at the end of
the name box.
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Window Element Description
New Sheet An Excel workbook is made up of different sheets. This button is used
to add a new sheet to a workbook. The new sheet will be named Sheet
2, Sheet 3, and so forth depending on how many sheets are added.
Quick Access Toolbar The default buttons for this toolbar are the Save, Undo, and Redo
buttons. The toolbar can be customized to contain any of the
commands that you use frequently such as Open and Close.
Ribbon This ribbon contains the groups and buttons that make it possible to
use the different commands in the Excel program. The ribbon consists
of tabs which contain groups to which buttons to perform the different
commands are located.
Sheet Scroll Buttons These buttons are used to move from one worksheet to another one in
the workbook
Sheet Tabs Excel is a workbook with sheets similar to a book. These tabs are used
to insert worksheets or charts into a workbook. A name can be applied
to each tab indicating what type of data or object is located within that
sheet.
Status Bar This bar is located at the bottom of each workbook. It is used to show
the status of work within the worksheet. This is the area where the
Shortcuts for viewing workbooks and the Zoom features are located.
Title Bar This bar displays the name of the program that is open, along with the
workbook name. The help, ribbon display options, minimize,
maximize/restore, and close buttons are located at the right end of this
bar.
View Shortcuts These shortcuts are used to display a worksheet in different formats.
The views are Normal, Page Layout, and Page Break Preview.
Workspace This is the area where data is entered into a worksheet. Formulas and
Functions can also be inserted into this area of a worksheet, as well as
charts, WordArt, Shapes, and other objects.
Zoom Controls This area is used to magnify or shrink the content of a file that is
displayed in the workspace. The buttons on each end of the Zoom bar
can be clicked to either magnify or shrink the view. The default size is
100 percent.
