Data Proofing
Data Proofing in excel is a tool to test alphanumeric errors within the written material of the document. Proofing is used in Excel to check the spelling, research, thesaurus, and translation in Excel.
Data proofing settings can be accessed through clicking on File->Options->Proofing in MS-Excel.
These are the features which enables Excel to change, correct and format your text.
You can set your own settings for data proofing in excel according to your needs.
Just check the box which you want to make active and within the excel sheet if you make those typo errors, Excel will prompt you.
- For e.g. in the above screenshot the Ignore words in UPPERCASE is checked that means the words written in UPPERCASE will bypass excel data proofing and they will not be checked for spelling mistakes.
- Or if you want to ignore some words which contains numbers, maybe if you are working with university roll numbers in your document, these roll numbers are usually alphanumeric. You may want to ignore these types of data. Just check the option Ignore words that contains numbers and you are good to go.
- Also, you can ignore the Names of Internet & File Addresses as the spelling of these files might not go well with the AutoCorrect features of Excel.
- You may want to Flag Repeated words as you may have mistyped a single word two times when going to write in a new line, the document looks unprofessional with these types of errors.
Under the AutoCorrect Section you choose from different settings by clicking on the AutoCorrect Options Button. Which takes you to another dialog box.
Here you can set how you want to use the AutoCorrect features.
For e.g. if you check the box with the label Replace text as you Type, the text which you type, if it has typo errors it will be automatically fixed with what excel thinks is best suited.
Also, you can check or uncheck Auto Capitalization of the first letter of sentences. If the feature is enabled, the first letter of every sentence will be automatically capitalized.
There are other options which you can check or uncheck depending on what level or AutoCorrect features you want in your sheet.
Save Settings in Excel
Now this is a very important setting for all the MS-Excel users which posses very useful tools to keep your work saved in case of you met an unexpected system error or power loss.
For accessing the settings related to saving your document.
Go to File->Options->Save
You will get this window. Which will contain all the save options given by MS-Excel.
- The first option in this setting is asking you to tell Excel in which format you want to save your workbook. You can choose from a variety of formats which also includes earlier versions of MS-Excel such as 2003,2007, etc. Also, you get other options such as CSV file, XML data, Excel Template, Web Page, Text Document and many more.
- The next option is very important considering how often system failures occurs while working on a document. If you check the box Save Auto Recover information, it will ask you to enter the minutes after which the document is automatically saved locally without the need of saving the document manually every then. If any unexpected error occurs, you would still have the last auto saved state. And you can then recover from that state, approximately to your current working state. Sometimes all of the information may not get recovered due to the intervals in which auto save works. Although you can decrease the interval.
- You can also set the default save location for your workbooks by setting the path to your desired directory under the label Default Local File Location.
The section Preserve visual appearance for workbook enables you to preserve the colours to their closest match if your workbook is being opened on a system containing an older version of MS-Excel.
You can edit the colour palette to be used when your workbook is opened in earlier versions of excel. All colours used in the workbook will be mapped to the nearest colour when trying to open the document in old versions.
Language Settings in Excel
If you want to work on any other language in Excel other than the default language.
Go to Files->Options->Languages in MS-Excel
Under the section Office Display Languages, choose from the available languages.
If you are not able to find your language then click on the link to Install Additional Display Languages from Office.com which will give you a list of language options which you can download and install on your system.
But only downloading a language doesn’t gives Excel the magical powers to enable Data Proofing on the language you are working on. You need to install the Data Proofing asset for the particular language to get the support for proofing features.
Just in the same tab below the above section there is another section to do this.
Follow the same procedure to enable data proofing for your language which is discussed just above this section.
Ease of access settings in Excel
Generally, this setting is geared towards those who have some sort of physical difficulty in understanding the normal flow of work which in turn can seem very easy to a normal person without the disabilities.
If any person in your team or any individual who has some problems in visually identifying elements, they can be aided via Excel by these very powerful ease of access settings which are pre-built in MS-Excel.
You may help someone by enabling these settings in the affected person’s system.
Go to Files->Options->Ease of access
You’ll notice these options appearing inside the window:
Please check the box which has the Label Keep accessibility checker running while I work.
This option will find and fix content in your document that may make it harder for people with disabilities to consume your content.
Office will show accessibility issues while you work on your document by showing a reminder in the Status Bar.
Also, under the Feedback Options section, by checking the box with label name Provide feedback with sound, it can actually help the users who are visually impaired by producing sounds to help them work in their workbook.
Increasing the font size also may help them identifying elements with better clarity.
We hope that we have provided you an awesome content on these topics which can help everyone regardless of being a student or a working professional who needs to brush up their Excel skills.