Opening the Excel Preferences Dialog Box

To work through this chapter, open the Excel Preferences dialog box by choosing Excel Preferences from the menu bar or by pressing Cmd+, (Cmd and the comma key).

As you can see in Figure 2–1, the Excel Preferences dialog box contains three main categories of preferences—Authoring, Formulas and Lists, and Sharing and Privacy. Each category contains five or six icons that you click to display the corresponding preferences pane.

Figure 2–1. From the overview screen of the Excel Preferences dialog box, click the icon for the preferences pane you want to display.

You navigate the Excel Preferences dialog box much as you do Mac OS X's System Preferences window:

• Click the icon for the preferences pane you want to display. For example, click the General icon to display the General preferences pane.
• Click the Show All icon to return to the overview screen so you can display another category of preferences.
• Click the Back button to return to the previous screen. The previous screen is almost always the overview screen, so clicking the Back button tends to have the same effect as clicking the Show All button.
• Don't click the Forward button—at this writing, it never becomes enabled so it doesn't do anything.
• To search for a preference, click in the Search box, then type a keyword. In the list of matching preferences that Excel displays, click the preference you want. Excel highlights the relevant icon for a moment so you can identify it, then displays the preferences pane.