Keyboard, mouse, and command techniques for viewing worksheets

- [Instructor] Excel has a number of different approaches to zooming in and zooming out on data, and also some techniques for seeing more information without actually shrinking it. So on this worksheet here I haven't seen it in a while. Imagine that scenario, and I want to see what else is on the worksheet. I think there's some data off to the right. I can use that zoom box in the lower right hand corner. It's a rectangular black box. As I drag it to the left, we're seeing more data. The percent number to the right keeps shrinking as we do this. So I drag it rightward.

Percent gets larger. We're seeing less data, but could say we're seeing it better. An unintended side effect, and this happens from time to time, in columns with numerical information you will sometime see those pound signs, those hashtags like we're seeing here in column D. We could double click each time we do this. This is not, by the way, in any way your fault, this is just a design flaw in Excel that will happen. What some people do is just make these columns extra wide, at least for a while, and that will not happen as you zoom in and out. Now, I think it's easier to zoom in and out by holding down the control key, because then you can use the mouse wheel, and the mouse can be pointing anywhere.

As we do this, each percent number in the lower right hand corner changes by 15%. Most of the time we don't really care there, but again, we can be a little bit more casual about using this. And of course, in all these different zooming examples, we're not changing data. We're simply changing the view of it. So those are certainly handy techniques. You'll have some unusual zooming issues. For example, I might want to see just this data. I want to see it as large as I can. On the View tab, zoom to selection. Zoom the sheet so the selected range of cells fills the entire window.

There it is. Sometimes you will see other data along with it, but at least you'll be seeing this data as large at it can be on the excel screen. Now if I wanted to see just this data, and before I actually change it, look in the lower right hand corner. Right now it's 291%, but if it's now this data, a smaller amount, zoom to selection. From 291% up to 324%. Now zooming back again. If you use that feature a lot. I don't think too many people would, but if you use it a lot, I've got some data highlighted here.

There is a keystroke shortcut we could use alt, W, and then G. I'm not sure how you're supposed to remember that one. Alt, W, G, will take that data and make it be as big as it can be on the screen. There's also a button here for 100%. If you found out in using Excel with this worksheet, that worksheet that you commonly need that, well just click this button. That too is a shortcut. I'll zoom in a bit. Here too, you'd be hard pressed to remember what it is unless you write it down, but it's alt, W, J.

There we are. So that's at 100%. And again, we see that in the lower right hand corner. Now, when you are working with large worksheets, and doing the zooming with control and the mouse wheel, the screen often's jittery, the way it is right now. To alleviate most of that, start in cell A1. Now you can't always do that, or you don't always want to do that, but when the active cell is there, and you do the zooming, there's less of that jittery effect, so it tends to work a little bit more smoothly that way. Now if you were making a presentation of this data to some HR professionals, you're talking about the numbers, the data that's on the screen and so on.

Again, we can use our zooming techniques to see more or less data but at the same time be concerned about it being visible. We can also hide the ribbon icons. We can do that in two ways. We can press control, F1. Now, right now we're seeing 15 rows based on this zoom factor, but pressing control, F1, we're seeing 18 rows, but we're not seeing the ribbon icons. So let's say, maybe for a while, we don't even need them. We can bring that back quickly with control, F1. We can also get to the same place by double clicking any of the ribbon tabs.

Doesn't have to be the current one necessarily, but there's View. I'll double click it. It's collapsed. Double click it. It's back. If we did have that feature selected where we wanted to, for example, just see the admin people, and maybe just this part of the data here. What if we just wanted to see that? That feature called zoom to selection, we're using that. What happens now if we hide the ribbon icons? I'm going to press control, F1. We're seeing more data this way. I could come back and use that command again, if I wanted to. It will make the data bigger.

There's another feature too though, you might be interested in, and that's going completely full screen. Now control, F1 remember, did hide the ribbon icons or brought them back. Control, shift, F1 takes us into full screen. And we can't use any of the commands for the moment. So Control, shift, F1, full screen, or brings us back. Control, F1 hides the ribbon icons or brings them back. And you don't necessarily have to always use those together, so if, for example, you say, "I want to go full screen "right now." It's control, shift, F1.

I don't want that any more. Control, shift, F1. And again, play with the variations a little bit. And so we've seen a number of techniques for zooming in and out, the slider bar in the lower right hand corner, using control with the mouse wheel, using some of these features on the View tab right here, or using those techniques for hiding either the ribbon icons, or going completely full screen. Both those keystroke shortcuts and double clicking the icon we saw up here. Different techniques for seeing our data in different ways.