Useful toolbar buttons you don't see every day in Excel 2003, Part 3

This is the last post in the Useful toolbar buttons you don't see every day Series. To view previous entries, visit:

• Part One
• Part Two

Let's finish up with the Format, View and Edit menus. Each of these has a few useful commands you might want to keep handy on one of your Excel toolbars.

Format this!

I found the following commands on the Format Menu. The best place for Double Underline would be next to the existing Bold / Italic / Underline buttons. Like the name says, this command adds double underline formatting to a cell. Although I find that the underline is too close to the letters in the cell, making it harder to read, it certainly makes the cells stand out. Double Accounting is better (Format » Cells » In the Underline listbox, select "Double Accounting") because the spacing between the cell content and the double underline is greater.

• Double Underline
• Strikethrough – can also be toggled with Ctrl+5
• Cycle Font Color

Cycle Font Color is more of a parlour trick, and I can't tell what method it uses to loop through the font colorindex, but it's fun when you are bored.

View Menu

The View menu has three commands that are somewhat handy. You can actually toggle the visibility of the formula bar and comments, and the most interesting one: HTML Source, which opens the Microsoft Script Editor where you can view the HTML version of the workbook.

• Formula Bar
• Show/Hide Comments
• HTML Source

And here's the (partial) HTML source for a brand new workbook:

Edit Menu

I found five commands on the Edit menu worthly of their own place on a toolbar.

• Clear Contents
• Clear Formatting
• Delete Comment
• Select Visible Cells
• Select Current Region – same as Ctrl+Shift+8 or Ctrl+*

These should be self-explanatory, they're on the traditional Edit menu or the right-click context menu.