Excel's Editing Settings

Excel's Edit settings, found on the Edit tab of the Options dialog box, offer a wide array of editing options, most of which are selected by default and seldom, if ever, need changing. Therefore, instead of focusing solely on how to change these options to suit your work habits, this technique also covers how to more efficiently use of a few them when modifying your spreadsheets.

This technique begins by covering how and when to change the direction in which the cell pointer moves when you press Enter and then gives you the lowdown on why you might want to disable the AutoComplete feature. You then discover how to efficiently use Excel's drag-and-drop editing (and when it's best to stick with the old cut-and-paste standby). The technique concludes by giving you pointers on when to edit a cell's contents directly in the cell and when to rely on the old tried-and-true cell editing on the Excel Formula bar.