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When working with Excel 2007, you discover certain do's and don'ts that, if followed religiously, can make using this program just heavenly. Lo and behold, the following Excel Ten Commandments contain just such precepts for eternal Excel bliss.
1. Thou shalt protecteth thy completed workbook and all its worksheets from corruption and iniquities at the hands of others (clicketh Review --> Protect Sheet or Protect Workbook). And if thou be brazen enough to addeth a password to thy workbook protection, beware lest thou forgeteth thy password in any part. For verily I say unto thee, on the day that thou knowest not thy password, that day shalt be the last upon which thou lookest upon thy workbook in any guise.
2. Thou shalt changeth the manner of recalculation of thy workbooks from automatic to manual (clicketh Formulas --> Calculation Options --> Manual or presseth Alt+MXM) when thy workbook groweth so great in size that Excel sloweth down to a camel crawl whenever thou doeth anything in any one of its worksheets. Woe to thee, should thou then ignoreth the Calculate message on the Status bar and not presseth the Calculate Now key (F9) or clicketh Formulas --> Calculate Now before such time as thou mayest print any of thy workbook data.
3. Thou shalt not print thy spreadsheet report lest thou hath first previewed its pages by clicking the Page Layout View button (the middle button of the three to the immediate left of the Zoom Slider on the Status bar) and art satisfied that all thy pages are upright in the sight of the printer. If thou art still unsure of how thy pages break, clicketh the Page Break Preview button to its immediate right on the Status bar to seeth how Excel doth divide thy pages.
4. Thou shalt not delete, neither shalt thou insert, columns and rows in a worksheet lest thou hath first verified that no part as yet undisplayed of thy worksheet will thereby be wiped out or otherwise displaced.
5. Thou shalt useth the Undo feature (clicketh the Undo button on the Quick Access toolbar or presseth Ctrl+Z) immediately upon committing any transgression in thy worksheet so that thou mayest clean up thy mess. Should thou forgeteth to useth thy Undo feature straightaway, thou must select the action that thou wouldst undo from the pop-up menu attached to the Undo command button on the Quick Access toolbar. Note well that any action that thou selectest from this drop-down list will undo not only that action but also the actions that precedeth it on this menu.
6. Thou shalt select thy cells before thou bringeth any Excel command to bear upon them, just as surely as thou doth sow before thou reapeth.
7. Thou shalt begin all thy Excel 2007 formulas with = (equal) as the sign of computation. If, however, ye be formerly of the Lotus 1-2-3 tribe, thou shalt haveth special dispensation and can commence thy formulas with the + sign and thy functions with the @ sign.
8. Thou shalt not spread wide the data in thy worksheet, but rather shalt thou gather together thy tables and avoideth skipping columns and rows unless this is necessary to make thy data intelligible. All this shalt thou do in order that thou may conserve the memory of thy computer.
9. Thou shalt nameth thy workbooks when saving them the first time with filenames of no more than twelve score and fifteen characters (255), including spaces and all manner of weird signs and symbols. So, too, shalt thou mark well into which folder thou savest thy file lest thou thinkest in error that thy workbook be lost when next thou hast need of it.
10. Thou shalt commit thy work to disk by saving thy changes often (clicketh the Save button on the Quick Access toolbar or presseth Ctrl+S). If thou findest that thou tendeth to be lax in the saving of thy work, thou shalt maketh sure that thy AutoRecover feature is engaged. Clicketh Office Button --> Excel Options --> Save or presseth Alt+FIS and then maketh sure that the Save AutoRecover Information check box hath a check mark and that its text box is set to no more than 10 minutes.
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