Microsoft Excel 2003 Misc
The Slash Character Opens Menus - Change It
Summary: Learn a keyboard shortcut for opening menus in Microsoft Excel 2003 as well as how to change the shortcut.
To help transition users of other spreadsheets to Microsoft Excel 2003, transition features were added to help emulate these spreadsheets.
For example (and this is a useful tip nonetheless for frequent keyboardists), pressing the "/" key, unless you are editing a cell, focuses on the menu bar. From here, you can use the cursor keys to navigate the menu and ENTER to select an option. This can save you time as you won't need to grab the mouse every time you need to perform special operations.
For your information, the ALT button does this as well.
You may find this feature useful, but would rather define a different key to access menus other than "/". To do so:
1. Click "Tools" - "Options".
2. When the "Options" multi-tabbed dialog box appears, select the "Transition" tab.
3. Next to "Microsoft Office Excel menu key", type in a key to access the menu. Note it must be alphanumeric or a symbol; you cannot press F12 or ESC, for example.
4. Click "OK" to close the dialog box.
Add: 
Del.icio.us | 
Digg | 
Furl | 
My Yahoo!
Last Modified on: July 13, 2008, at 12:04 A.M. EDT
Return to the Microsoft Excel 2003 Misc page.
Search the Site: