Selecting Commands on the Office Menu

Clicking the Office Button opens the only pull-down menu in Excel 2007. Almost all the commands on this pull-down menu are related to actions that affect the entire file, such as saving and printing. If you prefer, you can open this menu by pressing Alt+F (F for File) instead of clicking the Office Button.

Opening the Office Menu and Selecting Its Commands

In this tutorial, you get familiar with the commands on the Office menu as you practice opening the Office menu and selecting some of its commands. Make sure that Excel 2007 is running and an empty Sheet1 worksheet is active on your computer monitor.

1. Highlight the Office Button (by hovering the mouse pointer over it without clicking the mouse button) and wait until its ScreenTip appears. The ScreenTip shows you an image of the menu and gives you a brief description of its function.
   
   
2. Click the Office Button to open its pull-down menu.
   Note the commands New through Close in the left menu pane. Also note the Excel Options and Exit Excel command buttons at the very bottom of the menu.
   
   
3. Highlight the Save As command on the Office menu (but don't click it).
   Note all the Save a Copy sub-options that now appear in the right menu pane.
   
   
4. Now, click the Save As command on the Office menu to select it. Excel opens the Save As dialog box where you can modify the name, location, and type of Excel workbook file before saving a copy of it.
   
   
5. Press the Esc (Escape) key on your keyboard to close the Save As dialog box.
   
   
6. Press Alt+F to open the Office menu again, this time from the keyboard. This time, small letters appear on each command as well as on the sub-option buttons attached to the Save As and Print commands. These are the access keys that you can type to select an option rather than clicking its name or button.
   
   
7. Type W to display the Print command sub-options, and then type V to select the Print Preview sub-option.
   Excel displays an alert dialog box indicating that there is no data in the Sheet1 worksheet to preview. Note the appearance of the dashes in the Excel worksheet display showing where the pages would be divided.
   
   
8. Click OK in the alert box and then press Alt+FI to open the Excel Options dialog box. The Excel Options dialog box contains all the options for changing the Excel program and worksheet options. These options are divided into categories Popular through Resources.
   
   
9. Click the Advanced button in the left pane to display all the Advanced options in the right pane. Next, scroll down to the Display Options for This Worksheet section and click the Show Page Breaks check box to remove its check mark before you click the OK command button to close the dialog box.
   Note that deselecting the Show Page Breaks option in the Excel Options dialog box removes all the dashed page break lines from the Sheet1 worksheet.