Microsoft Excel: Unleashing Microsoft Excel’s Menus

Microsoft Excel 2000 introduced two new menu features called expanding menus and recently used commands and this feature has been continued in the version of Microsoft Excel 2003.

The expanding menus functionality is designed to show you the most commonly used commands rather than all commands that are available. This functionality is installed by default. To the right is an example of an expanding menu of the Tools menu.
There are three default ways to expand a menu in Microsoft Excel. The first technique is by clicking on the double arrows at the bottom of the menu as shown in the diagram to the right.

The second technique involves double clicking the text on the menu such as the File or Edit command.
The third technique involves clicking once with the left mouse button on the text of the menu such as File or Edit and then leaving your mouse pointer over the menu for a short period. After a short period the menu will automatically expand.
For new users this functionality can cause a lot of confusion as they may be looking for a function that they know should be in the menu but because it is hidden they think they are wrong.

Turning This Functionality On And Off

One of the key advantages that Microsoft provides with this style of command is that they have provided you with the ability to turn this functionality on and off. To do this we first simply go to the Tools Menu and then choose the Customize command. The customize dialogue box will then be visible as shown below. To turn this functionality on you deselect the check box in front of the Always show full menus text.

To turn this functionality off you select the check box in front of the Always show full menus text.