The aim of this document is to show you how to make the best use of some of the facilities in Microsoft Excel and, in particular, to save you time when using it. Be aware that we have several other documents on using Excel, including A Beginners’ Guide, An Intermediate Guide, plus a host of advanced topics.

Starting Microsoft Excel and Opening Files
Launching Excel via the Start menu and All Programs isn’t the most efficient way of doing things; it’s much easier to do so from an icon on the Desktop:
1. Open the Windows Start menu and choose All Programs then Microsoft Office
2. Instead of clicking on Microsoft Office Excel 2003, hold the right mouse button down and drag Excel from the Microsoft Office menu onto the Desktop - choose Copy Here
3. Now (and in future) double click on the Microsoft Excel icon to launch the software

You can also place shortcuts to files you are currently working on the Desktop in a similar way - this time (when you drag the file icons from My Documents using the right mouse button) choose Create Shortcuts Here from the pop-up menu. When you have finished working on a file then you can the shortcut (leaving the file itself safe in My Documents). Another feature which makes opening a file easier is to alter the number of documents which feature in the list of recently used files (the list which appears at the foot of the File menu):..

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