Question: How do I get rid of the “Getting Started“ pane appearing on the right part of the excel workbook area?

Excel Tip: This is called the “Startup Task Pane” and makes some everyday tasks easily available. Since part of it is the Recently used file list which is also available directly under the File menu, you may indeed want to free some space by getting rid of it: Just disable (untick) the Startup Task Pane box of Tools menu – Options command – View tab.

Question: Can menu items (commands) be removed or re-arranged?

Excel Tip: In old Excel versions, commands used to be fixed. Now they may be moved vertically, i.e. up or down a menu category, horizontally, i.e. across different menu categories, or even removed from the menu altogether. For example, if you consider that the Office Clipboard… command under the Edit menu is rarely used and therefore should not appear on your menu, you may take the following steps:

1. Right click on any point within the menubar or toolbar

2. Choose Customize…

3. Click on the Edit menu

4. Drag-and-drop the Office Clipboard… command outside the menubar/toolbar area

5. Click Close in the Customize dialog box

To re-arrange a menu command up or down a menu category, just follow steps 1. – 3. above and then drag-and-drop the command up or down.

Excel Tip: If the 2 files are both open (i.e. in memory), there is no problem at all, as the Dependant file “reads” the insertion and adjusts its formula to take into account the cell’s new position. In the following example, the formula in D5 of the Dependant file is =5*[Supporting.xls]Sheet1!$B$7.

When we insert 3 rows above B7 in the Supporting file, the formula in the Dependant file is automatically adjusted to =5*[Supporting.xls]Sheet1!$B$10 and the result is still 10, which is correct.

 However, if the insertion in the Supporting file is made in the absence of the Dependant file (i.e. without the Dependant file being open in memory), when we open the Dependant file we realize that the new position B10 taken by cell B7 is not taken into account and the formula in the Dependant file remains (incorrectly) =5*[Supporting.xls]Sheet1!$B$7. The result is 0 which, of course, is also incorrect.

 Some more straightforward actions like changing the numerical content of cell B7 would not produce an error, even if the Dependant file is not open.

 As a conclusion, you may safely work on 2 or more linked files when they are both open in memory. When the Dependant file, however, is not open, some rather more complex actions like inserting or deleting row/columns will produce errors. Care should also be exercised when the linked files belong to more than 2 hierarchical levels – in that case you should save each level’s dependant file(s) before going to the next one up.