Before we get into the nuts and bolts of working with Excel, it is probably a good idea to learn about Excel’s help features. Almost anyone who works with a program with many functions and options will find themselves needing help at some point. You may know exactly what you want to do, but not how to do it.
In this lesson, you will learn how to get help by using the Help file. You will also learn about online and offline Help. Knowing how to use these features can help you access the information and instructions you need to accomplish your Excel goals.
Opening Help
To open the Help file, click the blue question mark icon at the top of the window or press F1 on your keyboard:
Using the Help Screen
The Help file will open in a separate window:
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Note that you may see a list of suggestions appear at the top of the Help file
depending on what you were doing when the Help file was opened. For example, if you opened the Help file while viewing the File menu, you would see a number of items referring to the management of Excel files, things new users to Excel 2010 should know, etc.
In the top right-hand corner, you will see the Minimize, Maximize/Restore, and Close buttons. Also at the top is the title bar, toolbar, and search bar:
The main part of the window shows the help content, which is laid out like a Web page. There are links at the top to the different sections of the Microsoft Office Support portal, and links to the main Help topics:
42 Browse through the Help content by clicking the blue text. This text is linked to
relevant information described by the hyperlink text. For example, the “Getting Started with Excel 2010” link will take you to a page that lists subcategories for the topic. Continue clicking the links to follow the information path. Notice too that at the very top of the Help file you will see a “breadcrumb trail” that shows which location in the Help file you are viewing:
At the bottom there is a status bar which shows you where Help is searching. As you can see in the picture below, the Help file is Connected to Office.com. This means that the Help file is using your Internet connection to get the latest help right from Microsoft. We will explore the difference between online and offline help in a moment.
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The Help Toolbar
The Help toolbar contains commands similar to those you would find in a Web browser. In fact, the Help window behaves very much like a Web browser that only searches for information relevant to Excel.
Back Move back one step at a time through the help topics you have previously read.
Forward If you click the Back button, the Forward button will become active. This lets you step forward one step at a time through the topics you have visited.
Stop If you are searching for a help topic and the Help file is taking a long time to show results, you can click the Stop button to stop Word from searching. You might then revise your search or search for something else.
Refresh Use this button to reload the information on the current page.
Home Click this button to return to the main list of information you saw when you opened the Help file.
Print Prints the current topic.
Text Size Use this to make the text in the help file larger or smaller:
44 Table of
Contents
Use this button to browse the entire alphabetical list of Help topics. We will explore the table of contents in a moment.
Keep on Top
By default, the Help window will always display itself on top of the Excel window. Even if you are doing something in Excel, the Help window will remain on top until you close it or click this icon to make the Help window behave like any other window.
Toolbar Options
Use this command to add or remove buttons from this toolbar.
By default, all of the commands we have listed are shown.
Searching for Help
Searching for help is easy – just type something into the search bar you are looking for and press Enter. After a moment, any results Excel thinks are relevant will appear in a list. Click one of the topics in that list to view information on the topic.
For example, if you search for “formula” (while connected to Office.com) you should get search results that look something like this:
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Click the pull-down arrow beside the Search command for more search options:
Online Help vs. Offline Help
There are two versions of the Help file: online and offline.
Online Help requires an active Internet connection. When available, all searches for Help are directed to Office.com, the online portal for all Office programs. The Help
46 topics retrieved via Online help are considered the most up-to-date should there be a program change to any of the Office programs.
Offline Help refers to help content on your computer (called “local” content). It may not be completely up to date, but it will always be available.
To switch between the two modes, click the connection icon in the status bar and make your choice:
Using the Table of Contents
If you would prefer to navigate through the Help file using a more traditional method, click the Table of Contents (TOC) button ( ) on the Help toolbar. Your Help screen will then look like this:
From here, you can do one of two things.
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One thing you can do is to click items in the TOC to see the articles on the right side of the window:
When browsing the Help file, click items on the right side to see their relation in the tree structure of the TOC:
48 To navigate through the table itself, simply click on topics to expand them, and then click the link to view the topic.
Here is what the different icons mean.
Closed Book Click the book to expand the list of topics.
Open Book Click the book to collapse the list of topics.
Help Topic Click the title to view the help topic.
Getting Help in a Dialog Box
Some of Excel’s features are accessed via dialog boxes, which we haven’t really discussed yet. However, you should know that in some dialog boxes, you will see a help icon in the top left hand corner. Click this question mark to see specific help on that topic.
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