Excel Terminology

An Accelerator key is a keyboard method allowing the user to operate the Ribbon and the Context Menu by using keys allocated to each item.

In the Ribbon, the Accelerators are displayed next to the ribbon Tabs when one of the Ribbon activation keys is pressed - Alt, F10 or / (slash).  On pressing an Accelerator next to a ribbon tab, that tab is opened and Accelerators appear next to the commands and lists in the Ribbon.

In a Context Menu, the commands and sub menus have an underlined letter in the text of each option.  Pressing this letter activates the command or opens the sub-menu.

Add or Remove Selection Mode is activated when pointing in a reference either the Shift+F8 Extend Selection shortcut is pressed..  While in Add or Remove Selection Mode, the active cell can be moved to a cell, and then the selection mode keystrokes can be used to Add a new range area to the selection, or if the cells selected are already in the selected range, they are removed..  [click the link to see a screenshot of the Extend Selection Mode flag]

The Context Menu is the menu that is displayed either by pressing the ContextMenu key, pressing the shortcut Shift+F10, or right-clicking on the selected element on screen.  This provides commonly used commands associated with that application element.  Once activated, it can be cleared by pressing Esc.  To select acommand in the Context Menu either use the arrow keys to move the focus to the desired command and press Enter or use the Accelerator for the command (the underlined letter).

The ContextMenu key is a key that was added to keyboards in the late 1990s to simplify keyboard access to the Context Menu.

Edit Mode is activated when editing a formula.  Editing may be commenced by selecting a cell and then pressing F2 the edit shortcut, double-clicking the cell (if editing in cells is on) or clicking in the formula bar..  While in Edit Mode, any cursor movement keystrokes will move the insertion cursor within the expression or value being entered, and the selection keystrokes select one or more characters or 'words' in the value or expression.  [click the link to see a screenshot of the Edit Mode flag]

End Mode is activated or cancelled by pressing the End key, providing legacy support for range selection, as used in DOS spreadsheets.  When End Mode is set, the action taken depends upon the next key pressed..  [click the link to learn more and see a screenshot of the End Mode flag]

Enter Mode is activated when entering a value or expression in a cell.  While in Enter Mode, any cursor movement keystrokes will trigger Point Mode, allowing the user to select a range or ranges into the expression.  [click the link to see a screenshot of the Enter Mode flag]

Extend Selection Mode is activated when pointing in a reference, and either the F8 Extend Selection shortcut is pressed or the : (colon) character is pressed after pointing to a range..  While in Extend Selection Mode, pressing keys that move the active cell will change the address of the second reference n the range, extending or shrinking the referenced range, diagonally opposite the active cell..  [click the link to see a screenshot of the Extend Selection Mode flag]

The Last Cell is a cell that is tracked by Excel.  It is the cell that is at the intersection of the last used or formatted column in the worksheet and the last used or formatted row.  The cell itself may be blank or unformatted.  The location of the Last Cell is only accurate immediately after the workbook is opened or after it is saved.

The Name Box is the drop-down list at the beginning fo the formula bar that allows the user to navigate to and highlight a range that is referred to by a Defined Name or a s a fallback, to define a name to refer to the selected range.  [click the link to see a screenshot showing where the Name Box is located]

Point Mode is activated when editing an expression in Excel and the user points to a range.  [click the link to see a screenshot of the Point Mode flag]

The term "Product of Comparison" is used on this site to describe the substitution of an expression that multiplies the results of two or more comparison operations to apply a logical AND to a set of values.  Since the AND function cannot be used in an array expression, except where all conditions are to be evaluated at once, the use of a product of two or more comparisons enables evaluation cell-by-cell of logical AND conditions thus: (A1:A10>10)*(B1:B10<10)>0 will return TRUE for each of the ten rows only if both conditions are met.

The Quick Access Toolbar, commonly referred to by the acronym QAT, is a toolbar merged into the document window's title bar.  It provides, as its name suggests, quick access to commonly used commands.  The set of commands is user configurable.

Ready Mode is indicated by the flag 'Ready' appearing in the status bar.  This indicates that n processes, either commands or macros are executing and Excel is ready for to accept user entries, or commands.  [click the link to see a screenshot of the Ready Mode flag]

A serial date number is an integer that represents the date in the Excel calendar.  By default, day 1 is January 1, 1900, through to 2,958,465 representing December 31, 9999.

Storing dates using serial date numbers dramatically simplifies the calculation of durations and dates into the future and past as simple integer arithmetic.  Number formatting takes care of displaying the numbers as a date for user readability.

The actual numbers and date range may change based on the date setting in the workbook..

A serial time number is a decimal value that represents the time of day or elapsed time in Excel.  As a time of day value, the value 0 represents 0:00am (midnight) and the value 0.999988425925926 represents 23:59:59 (11:59:59 PM).  For elapsed time, the value represents the multiples of 24 hour periods elapsed.  12 hours is .5, 24 hours is 1, 36 hours is 1.5 and so on.

Storing times using serial time numbers dramatically simplifies the calculation of durations and times of day into the future and past as simple decimal arithmetic.  Number formatting takes care of displaying the numbers as a time of day or time elapsed.  By default time formats display the time value of the decimal portion only.  Special formatting is required to show elapsed times above 24 hours - placing brackets around the hours portion of the format..

The String Prefix character is the apostrophe (').  When prefixed to a value entered into an Excel cell, it signals to the system to store that value as a text string, regardless of whether it looks like a formula or another intrinsic value.  No interpretation of the value is undertaken and the formula is stored as 'entered characters.  The value in the cell is a text string consisting of the charcaters only and not including the string prefix character.

The term "Sum of Comparison" is used on this site to describe the substitution of an expression that sums the results of two or more comparison operations to apply a logical OR to a set of values.  Since the OR function cannot be used in an array expression, except where all conditions are to be evaluated at once, the use of a sum of two or more comparisons enables evaluation cell-by-cell of logical OR conditions thus: (A1:A10>10)+(B1:B10<10)>0 will return TRUE for each of the ten rows if either or both conditions are met.

The Text Number Format instructs Excel to display the text in the cell, but more importantly, instructs Excel to store any values entered into the cell as text strings, regardless of whether they look like intrinsic values or a formula.  Leading zeroes, such as in account and telephone numbers are therefore preserved.  The Text Number Format code is @.  See the Ready Reference on this site for information on number formatting codes.