How To Use The Ribbon in Excel 2013

If you are unfamiliar with the Ribbon in Excel 2013, let’s fill this gap. The Ribbon Interface is highly customizable and helps with repetitive work or if you need to focus on just a few commands in Excel. Here is an overview.

How To Use The Ribbon in Excel 2013

The Ribbon is made up of rectangles in the top working area – View, Review, Data, and Formulas. Each of these corresponds to a separate tab.

To begin, go to File. That’s the access to the Backstage View. Select any tab here. Take Home for example. Here you’ll see a number of groups. Their names are at the bottom (Clipboard Group, Font Group). These groups are separated by vertical dividing lines.

Within a group there are individual commands. For example, in the Tables Group you’ll see the Pivot Table Command and a Table Command. Each of them has their own screen tips.

Commands which are grayed out are not accessible for now. They can be executed after doing relevant work in the workspace. For example, to Paste something, you need to Copy something first.

So, the Ribbon is divided into tabs. Tabs have command groups divided into commands which let you do different types of work in Excel. For example, using the Table Command will give you a dialog window for creating a table.

Some commands have the possibility of getting a dialog box with options to choose from. These can be displayed by a small arrow button at the bottom named the Dialog box launcher, as found in the Pivot Chart of the Charts Group. If you click on that, you will have the choice of a pivot chart or a pivot chart and pivot table. If you click on the Dialog box launcher of Font in the Font Group, the dialog window will allow you to select Font, Style, Size, or Color.

There are a number of options on the drop-down box, like in Text. Text options are also on the Home tab, such as the Font Group and the Font Size Command. You can select the necessary font and its size from there or put its value directly into the Font size box.

Additionally, you can see the Close, Maximize, and Minimize buttons in the top right corner of the window as well as the Help and Ribbon Display Options. Clicking the Ribbon Display Options will give you:

• Show tabs and Commands – displaying tabs and commands.
• Show Tabs – displaying names of tabs. When you click on a tab, the Ribbon appears and disappears again.
• Auto-Hide Ribbon – hiding the Ribbon and the tabs. Click at the very top of the application to get them back.

Pressing Alt gives you the key tips option. For example, to access Home, press H, Page Layout – P. It also gives a similar set of keyboard shortcuts for all of the commands. It is useful for working with a keyboard. To hide it, press Alt again.

To customize the Ribbon, go to Options in the Backstage View and then go to Customize Ribbon. You will be able to select any options which are suitable for your work in Excel 2013.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!