nest of eggs - Image Source: Unsplash.com/Tania HeffnerHave you even noticed that there is a status bar at the bottom of your excel window? A lot of my students who have been using Excel for a number of years don’t know of its existence. This area of Excel is rather useful so I thought I’d take the time to explain it. The Status Bar
When you first open Excel the status bar is rather empty. All you see is “Ready” and a macro tool on the left hand side. On the right you have three different view choices and the zoom control.

· Ready means that Excel is in a state of ability to accept data.
· The macro tool is one way of starting to record your macro.
· The tree view choices are: – Normal, Page Layout, Page Break Preview.
· Zoom is so very important. So that you can either zoom out to see just how large your sheet is or zoom in for detail. (especially when you’re tired and there are lots of numbers to read).

When you have a spreadsheet of text and numbers the status bar holds far more information.

What does the status bar tell you?

Here is a basic sheet.

Basic Sheet

Select the first column of numbers. B3:B6.

Status Bar calculations

Look at the status bar now. It gives you a visual calculation of how many cells selected hold data, how many of them are numbers and what those numbers add up to.

Right mouse click on the status bar and a list appears.

Status Bar selection list

Every item in this list that is ticked is active, though not necessarily shown at all times. Just select the items you require or deselect the ones you don’t need.

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