Formula Bar in Excel 2008

[loose...@officeformac.com]

I don't like the floating formula bar in Excel 2008. Is there a way to anchor it to the main window like in the older versions?

Also is there a way to anchor some of the palette items as well?

I'm just not use to this new interface and I just want to work - not try to find everything or use the mouse to click something.

Thanks

[JE McGimpsey]

In article <ee88f...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>,
loose...@officeformac.com wrote:

> I don't like the floating formula bar in Excel 2008.

You can anchor it just under the menu bar, just as in all previous
versions. When you pop it into place, the formula area will extend
across the entire screen (you can make it shorter with the drag bar).

> Is there a way to anchor it to the main window like in the older
> versions?

The formula bar was never anchored to any window in older versions. It
either floated or was docked at the edges of the screen, just as in this
version.

> Also is there a way to anchor some of the palette items as well?

As in previous versions, you can't separate items in the Toolbox (except
for color palettes, which you can still tear off). And as in previous
versions, the Toolbox floats.

> I'm just not use to this new interface and I just want to work - not
> try to find everything or use the mouse to click something.

Nothing you've mentioned is much different than in XL04, or XLv.X, for
that matter.

The biggest difference in XL08 is that the Standard Toolbar is docked
inside the workbook window. That takes some getting used to, but it's
very similar to many, if not most, other Mac apps.

[nan...@officeformac.com]

This IS different from previous versions. No doubt about it. Yes, it is floating, as in previous versions, but the Standard Toolbar is now attached (to the "dock," I suppose), so there is no way to get the formula bar close to the worksheet. The standard toolbar gets in the way, frankly.

In addition, it is different from previous versions in that there is no way to have the standard toolbar NOT "in the dock." If I could make the standard toolbar and the formula bar either both in the dock or both floating, I'd be happy.

Incidentally, why IS it that only standard toolbar and formating toolbar can be in the dock? Any why is it mandatory that the standard toobar MUST be in the dock, if it's there at all. Doesn't make any sense, really.

[JE McGimpsey]

In article <ee88...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, nan...@officeformac.com
wrote:

> This IS different from previous versions. No doubt about it. Yes, it is
> floating, as in previous versions, but the Standard Toolbar is now attached
> (to the "dock," I suppose), so there is no way to get the formula bar close
> to the worksheet. The standard toolbar gets in the way, frankly.

> <br><br>In addition, it is different from previous versions in that there is

> no way to have the standard toolbar NOT "in the dock." If I could make the
> standard toolbar and the formula bar either both in the dock or both

> floating, I'd be happy. <br><br>Incidentally, why IS it that only standard

> toolbar and formating toolbar can be in the dock? Any why is it mandatory
> that the standard toobar MUST be in the dock, if it's there at all. Doesn't
> make any sense, really.

The standard toolbar in the unified toolbar-titlebar ("the dock") is a
result of moving toward increased compliance with the Apple Human
Interface Guidelines:

http://tinyurl.com/2etj9a

I agree that it would have been nice if all the other toolbars were
either docked or Aqua panels, but much of the toolbar functionality and
therefore development effort has obviously moved to the Toolbox, which
is panel-like.

The formula bar has always been a different beast. There's something
really funky about the way the formula box control has been coded - it
never acted right when put into a custom toolbar in previous versions.
So I'd guess that's why it didn't make it into the dock.

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

May I assume that you are referring to Excel 2008 for Macintosh?

I think your consternation is a result of Microsoft adopting a new attitude toward toolbars. In all previous versions of Office, toolbars were at the application level. If you closed a document window, your toolbars remained. Not matter what document was opened, only things relating to the document appeared in the document window.  This is the right way to do it IMHO.

However, web browser makers (Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc) never got around to implementing this behavior. I don’t know if they were lazy, incompetent, never thought about it, or what the reason was, but the web browser makers usually fill each document window with browser controls instead of making separate toolbars.

Because web browsers are so popular, Apple and now Microsoft have adopted the same “look and feel” and are wasting lots of screen space with application controls in each document window. The reason for the change in Office 2008 is to follow the crowd to be trendy, chique and look like web 2.0 applications. The same controls are duplicated over and over in each document. What a waste of screen space! But the look and feel is now consistent (consistently bad IMHO) in more and more applications.

Thankfully, for those of us who want a clean look with sensible behavior, the Mac version of Office 2008 lets you customize things. We can make the interface work the way it’s supposed to (or at least the way you and I think it should). Incidentally, Windows Office 2007 users are simply screwed in this regard, so thank Apple and MacBU for making and following the Apple user interface guidelines. We still have menus and still have customizable toolbars.

So let’s get started on undoing all this messy garbage they put into the document windows.

First, go to View > Customize Menus and Toolbars.  A box will open on the screen. We’re going to make a new toolbar that will behave like the old, dockable, resizable toolbars did. Click the New button and give the new toolbar a name; for example: My Standard. Then click the OK button.

A new, very small toolbar will then appear on the screen. It will be a very small box and you will have to look for it, but it’s there.

Now drag each command, one by one, from the Standard toolbar to your new toolbar. While you’re at it you can arrange the commands in any order on your new toolbar. If there’s a command you never use you can drag it off into the air and let go (like when you get rid of a dock icon) and then it goes away (no fancy poof, though). If you click on the Commands button in the Customize box you can add any command you want to to your new toolbar. If you right-click or control-click on a command choose Properties. Then you can change the icon for the command (you can paste new icon pictures in if you want) and whether or not to have a group dividing line to the left of the command button on your toolbar.

Now we can get rid of the big gray space that’s left by clicking on Toolbars and Menus tab in the Customize box and uncheck the Standard checkbox. If you ever want to restore the controls that were removed from the standard toolbar you can click on the word Standard in the Customize box and click the Reset button. Doing so will not affect your new toolbar.

Once you have your new standard toolbar set up, click the OK button in the Customize box and there it is! You can dock it at the top of the Excel window, resize it, have it floating or dock to the bottom or sides just like in all previous versions of Excel.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

[nan...@officeformac.com]

Thanks Jim. Perhaps it was something I should have figured out on my own, but it was a great help.

This also answered another question of mine: I like to have "save as" as a button on the standard toolbar, but the standard "save as" button does not have an icon. It also seems to me that commands - on the title bar only - could not be customized. At least, nothing I did seemed to allow it. On any of the toolbars, it's a simple right-click and choosing "properties." Doesn't look like any command (or separator) can be customized. Too bad, really.

But since I won't be using the title bar for commands anymore (thanks again!), it doesn't really effect me....

[bfle...@officeformac.com]

There should be a mechanism to dock the formula bar in the document's windows just like you can dock the formatting and general functions bars. It is REALLY REALLY annoying having it floating on the screen.

[Dr...@officeformac.com]

I'll add my vote for a dockable formula bar. I understand Jim's point about screen space being wasted with toolbars in each window, but it's a case of different strokes for different folks. It depends on how big your screen is as to whether docking the toolbars is a bad thing or a good thing. I'm on dual 30" monitors, and I can afford to waste a bit of screen space by docking my toolbars. What is driving me crazy is having the formula bar floating off in the corner of one screen while the spreadsheet is several feet away at the other side of the other screen. A docking formula bar would be a big improvement IMHO.

[JE McGimpsey]

In article <ee88...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, Dr...@officeformac.com
wrote:

Make sure you add your vote via Help/Feedback... too.

Just be aware that the Formula edit box control is, and has always been,
very difficult or impossible to incorporate into other
toolbars/windows. I suspect that's partly because it's an expandable
input box, which is unlike any other ListBox or ComboBox control

[Dr...@officeformac.com]

Thanks! I did submit it as a feedback item, and hopefully others reading this thread will do the same (in case others are wondering, the easiest way to get to the feedback page is to select "Send Feedback" under the Help menu in Excel — it took me a while to figure that out!).

[Phillip Jones]

There is also another floating bar that's undockable. That's the little
PDF Printer Menu inserted by Adobe acrobat.. Thank goodness in Office
2008 it can be turned off.

every time I open Excel2004 or Word2004 I have to drag that little menu
to the end of one of the docked menus. Even though I've opened
W2004/E2004 a zillion times.

The first time I opened 2008 I looked for the preference for the
dockable menu and lo and behold there was a choice turn the the #$@^&
thing off.

And its not needed now since you have a choice in Save As... menu to
save directly to PDF. which does the correct thing about saving to PDF.

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[JE McGimpsey]

In article <u9lu6K6Y...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl>,
Phillip Jones <pjo...@kimbanet.com> wrote:

> There is also another floating bar that's undockable. That's the little
> PDF Printer Menu inserted by Adobe acrobat.. Thank goodness in Office
> 2008 it can be turned off.
>
> every time I open Excel2004 or Word2004 I have to drag that little menu
> to the end of one of the docked menus. Even though I've opened
> W2004/E2004 a zillion times.

Or you could have used the technique here to get rid of the toolbar
altogether:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/office/pdftoolbar.html

[Phillip Jones]

So you are the one that originated that?? :-)

I've been using that for years because it never worked as it was
supposed to until Acrobat 7 and 8. Also a note in your info should if
the items should ever become corrupt unless you remove the old files and
trash them before updating them through Acrobat. they will just write on
top of the corrupt file and not fix the problem.

At least with office 8 you can turn the bloody things off and not have
to worry with them.

--

[Bob Greenblatt]

On 2/14/08 6:55 AM, in article ee88f...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Gary"
<Gary> wrote:

> I like the way the formula bar is incorporated into the iWork 'Numbers'
> window. It's really neat and not dissimilar to Excel Windows. I don't
> understand why this cannot be incorporated into Excel 08. It's really no
> different from having a URL bar in a browser.
Maybe you can't understand it, but you have no idea of the structure of
Excel's internal code to support the UI. If this is a feature you would
like, send feed back via the help menu and explain what you would like and
why. Perhaps if enough people agree we'll see it in a future version.

--
Bob Greenblatt [MVP], Macintosh
bobgreenblattATmsnDOTcom

[JE McGimpsey]

In article <ee88f...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>, Gary <> wrote:

> I like the way the formula bar is incorporated into the iWork 'Numbers'
> window. It's really neat and not dissimilar to Excel Windows. I don't
> understand why this cannot be incorporated into Excel 08. It's really no
> different from having a URL bar in a browser.

I agree that would be nice.

However there are several differences. One difference is that URL bars
in browsers that I know about don't expand to display 32767 characters
at once, nor do their editing capabilities include partial evaluation of
formulae.

The formula bar with its edit box control, in both WinXL and MacXL, have
"always" behaved differently than any other toolbars. I suspect it's
part of having 25-year-old legacy code.

Of course, that doesn't mean that it can't be reworked to be dockable.
Let MS know using Help/Send Feedback.

[TomH]

You all seem to be experts in the shortcomings of Mac Excel and its toolbars.

I recently moved from PC to Mac. Am running Office 2008. Have struggled seriously getting used to the lack of Alt + keyboard commands in Excel, but I'm getting used to it.

I have a powerbook 15" and an external Dell monitor.

About a week ago, the annoyingly floating formula bar opened up off the left side of the screen on my laptop. The controlling edge is off screen so I cannot grab it get it back onto the screen. I've tried just about everything to regain control.

Also, for whatever reason, my toolbars will not dock to the top of the window. They float, but will not attach at all. What could be causing this shortcoming.

Any suggestions.

[Pat McMillan]

For the Formula Bar problem, quit Excel and delete the
com.microsoft.Excel.plist file. Unfortunately, this will reset all of your
Excel preferences so any custom preferences will have to be set again. When
you re-launch Excel the Formula Bar will be in the right place again. We're
aware of this problem and are looking into it now.

I'm actually not sure about your toolbars not docking. Can you give me an
example of a toolbar that doesn't dock, and exactly where you're trying to
dock it? Do you mean directly beneath the main menu bar?

Thanks,

Pat

On 3/24/08 10:05 AM, in article ee88f...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "TomH"
<tom_he...@yahoo.com> wrote:

--
Pat McMillan
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft Corp.
This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[beau21]

i have a question and it's pretty much the same as the first guy's..

i, too, recently converted to mac and got Mac Office 2008. and when I go to
Excel I noticed there is no "formula bar" like I'm used to being right at the
top of my chart on my old PC Excel. So I went to View --> Formula Bar and
then it came up as a floating formula bar that showed the highlighted cell
and the formula or content of that cell.

my problem though it that I can not figure out how to attach/dock the
formula toolbar to the rest of Excel so it's not "floating" anymore...

i hope this makes sense.

here's a picture of my screen that i captured:
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8126/picture1wh5.png

you can see the formula bar but it's obviously not attached to the Excel
program but is just floating there. how can I attach it to the excel program
view like under the row that has "Arial" "12" "Bold" "Italic" "Underlined"
etc.

thanks!

[beau21]

*in addition to my post above*

here is a comparison:

Mac Office 2008: http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8126/picture1wh5.png

PC Office 2007:
http://www.geekpedia.com/gallery/fullsize/Microsoft%20Excel%202007.jpg

you can see in the Mac Office 2008 that the "formula bar" is floating.. and
that in PC Office 2007 the "formula bar" is docked above the "A,B,C,D" column
headings and shows "L30" as the selected cell..

i hope its more clear now...

is there a way to "dock" the "formula bar" in Mac Office 2008 to look like
the 2007 version so it stretches across the whole Excel screen?

thanks!

[CyberTaz]

What you're experiencing is one of the differences between the Windows & Mac
operating system interfaces - the window implementation is not the same. The
Standard & Formatting toolbars are the only ones that dock inside the
document (what you're calling the Excel program) window. That's why t
doesn't go away when no files are open.

Drag the Formula bar up & dock it at the bottom edge of the Menu bar or
leave it floating re the only options. But it *is* part of Excel or it
wouldn't be there in the first place:-) If you notice, the name "Excel" is
in the Menu Bar.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

On 3/31/08 12:15 AM, in article
BCC30F25-E1F3-4189...@microsoft.com, "beau21"

[JE McGimpsey]

In article <787D5576-81BB-44FD...@microsoft.com>,
beau21 <bea...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

The first link times out for me, but I'm not sure it's necessary.

There is no way to dock the Formula bar within the Excel document window.

Note that in XL07, the formula bar isn't docked in a document window
either: it's docked in the XL *application* window (which then contains
one or more document windows).

In MacOS X, document-based applications have individual document
windows, but the entire screen acts as the application window.

[amanda...@gmail.com]

HI

HI
I tried this and the new toolbar "My standard" I created, still doesn't dock, similar to the Formula Bar.