[gui-talk] JAWS and Excel

[Steve Jacobson]

Mike,

I really like Excel for dealing with tabular data.  While I don't consider myself an expert, I can share a few things that I 
learned either by experimenting or the hard way.

I'm sure you have already figured out that you can move around cell by cell using the arrow keys and that typing at 
any point will generally place you in edit mode within the highlighted cell.  You can also force Edit Mode with F2.  In 
addition, you can end edit mode in three ways at least.  Maybe there are more.  Pressing ESCAPE will cancel edit 
mode.  Pressing ENTER will complete the edit and move you a cell down, and what is less obvious is that pressing 
TAB will end editing and move one cell to the right.  Some of these behaviors can be modified within the options 
diealogs.  

What is less obvious is that the "END" key works as a sort of modifier.  I'm not sure if it works completely the same in 
2010 as in 2003, but pressing END followed by an arrow will more or less move you to the next blank cell in that 
direction.  You should check the help to read about these as I don't remember them all, but I have found the END 
followed by other keys to be very helpful, and it was something that was not obvious to me.  

Another thing that was not obvious to me at first is that Excel lets columns overflow if there is no data to the right.  You 
will see this used intentionally for titles sometimes.  The title will be typed into a column without changing the with and it 
flows over the columns to the right as long as there is no data.

Another keystroke that I didn't know about at first were CONTROL PGUP and CONTROL PGDN to move between 
worksheets within a spreadsheet.  

Window-eyes has some neat features to keep track of heading columns and rows and even totals.  I think JFW has 
some of the same, and learning how such features work is worth it on complicated spreadsheets.

Another useful Excel feature is Forms View.  This is within the Data menu in 2003.  It takes columns and basically 
rotates things so the column header is on the left and you fill in the data on the right.  Each row is then treated more or 
less as a record.  Ive used this occasionally but found it to not be that much of an advantage once I got familiar with 
other Excel features, but sometimes it might be worth looking at.

Especially with Excel 2003, I believe there are still lists of keystrokes on the Microsoft Enable site.  I do not believe I 
have copies around any more but will look.  I am sure that most of the above you may have already discovered, but 
this might help to know what sort of information you need.  My employer also uses Excel to manage data a lot, and I 
feel really lucky in that they could have picked much more problematic solutions for me.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:27:18 -0700, Mike Freeman wrote:

>I have Excel 2010 here at home but at work, we're still on Excel 2003. While
>I'd like to learn to add formulae and learn to do computations using Excel,
>in truth, that's not what's required here. Mostly, spreadsheets are used to
>generate tabular data such as keeping track of applications, where they're
>downloaded from, who's responsible for tracking patches etc. etc. etc. I
>know how to read spreadsheets and to modify them; I just wanted a bit more
>systematic knowledge of what I was doing as so far, I've learned by guess
>and by golly.

>Mike


>-----Original Message-----
>From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>Behalf Of Steve Jacobson
>Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 6:44 AM
>To: Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing List
>Subject: Re: [gui-talk] JAWS and Excel

>Mike,

>Which version of Excel and what are you trying to do?  I believe there are
>still keyboard shortcuts on the Microsoft site that you might find useful
>although if you are starting out they may seem overwhelming.  

>Best regards,

>Steve Jacobson

>On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Mike Freeman <k7uij at panix.com> wrote:

>>> Anyone know of a cheatsheet for creating and working with Excel 
>>> spreadsheets using JAWS? TIA!
>>>
>>> Mike Freeman
>>> sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> gui-talk mailing list
>>> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> gui-talk:
>>>
>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/blindhelpfu
>>> ltech%40gmail.com
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>gui-talk mailing list
>>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
>>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>gui-talk:
>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/steve.jacobso
>>n%40visi.com





>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>gui-talk:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/k7uij%40panix.com


>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for gui-talk:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/steve.jacobson%40visi.com