Eliminating Errors with Text to Speech

The good news is that Excel 2019 still supports the Text to Speech feature first introduced way back in Excel 2003. This feature enables your computer to read aloud any series of cell entries in the worksheet. By using Text to Speech, you can check your printed source while the computer reads aloud the values and labels that you’ve actually entered — a real nifty way to catch and correct errors that may otherwise escape unnoticed.

The Text to Speech translation feature requires no prior training or special micro- phones: All that’s required is a pair of speakers or headphones connected to your computer.

Now for the bad news: Text to Speech is not available from any of the tabs on the Ribbon. The only way to access Text to Speech is by adding its Speak Cells com- mand buttons as custom buttons on the Quick Access toolbar or to a custom tab on the Ribbon.

Here are the steps for adding the Text to Speech command buttons to the Quick Access toolbar (shown in Figure 4-13):

1.

Click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button at the end of the toolbar followed by the More Commands on the Customize Quick Access toolbar drop-down menu.

The Excel Options dialog box opens with the Customize Access Toolbar tab selected.

CHAPTER 4 Going Through Changes

175

09_9781119513322-ch04.indd 175 Trim size: 7.375 in × 9.25 in May 14, 2019 8:50 AM

2.

Click Commands Not in the Ribbon on the Choose Commands From drop-down menu and scroll down the list until you see the Speak Cells command.

The Text to Speech command buttons include Speak Cells, Speak Cells – Stop Speaking Cells, Speak Cells by Columns, Speak Cells by Rows, and Speak Cells on Enter.

3.

Click the Speak Cells button in the Choose Commands From list box on the left and then click the Add button to add it to the Quick Access toolbar following the Redo button.

4.

Click the Add button repeatedly until you’ve added the remaining Text to Speech buttons to the custom group: Speak Cells – Stop Speaking Cells, Speak Cells by Columns, Speak Cells by Rows, and Speak Cells on Enter.

To reposition the speech command buttons on the Quick Access toolbar, select the button and then move it up or down in the list (which corresponds to left and right, respectively, on the toolbar) with the Move Up and Move Down.

5.

Click the OK button to close the Excel Options dialog box.

Figure 4-13 shows the Quick Access toolbar above my Ribbon in my Excel 2019 program window after I added the speech buttons to it.

After adding the Text to Speech commands as custom Speak Cells buttons to your Quick Access toolbar, you can use them to corroborate spreadsheet entries and catch those hard-to-spot errors as follows:

1.

Select the cells in the worksheet whose contents you want read aloud by Text to Speech.

2.

Click the Speak Cells button on the Quick Access toolbar to have the computer read the entries in the selected cells.

FIGURE 4-13:

After adding the Speak Cells buttons to the Quick Access toolbar, you can use them to check cell entries audibly.

176

PART 2 Editing Without Tears

09_9781119513322-ch04.indd 176 Trim size: 7.375 in × 9.25 in May 14, 2019 8:50 AM

By default, the Text to Speech feature reads the contents of each cell in the cell selection by reading down each column and then across the rows. If you want Text to Speech to read across the rows and then down the columns, click the Speak Cells by Rows button on the Quick Access toolbar (the button with the two opposing horizontal arrows).

3.

To have the Text to Speech feature read each cell entry while you press the Enter key (at which point the cell cursor moves down to the next cell in the selection), click the Speak Cells on Enter custom button (the button with the curved arrow Enter symbol) on your Quick Access toolbar.

As soon as you click the Speak Cells on Enter button, the computer tells you,

“Cells will now be spoken on Enter.” After selecting this option, you need to press Enter each time that you want to hear an entry read to you.

4.

To pause the Text to Speech feature when you’re not using the Speak Cells on Enter option (Step 3) and you locate a discrepancy between what you’re reading and what you’re hearing, click the Stop Speaking button (the Speak Cells group button with the x).

After you click the Speak Cells on Enter button on the Quick Access toolbar, the Text to Speech feature speaks aloud each new cell entry you make after you com- plete it by pressing any of the keys — Enter, Tab, Shift+Tab, one of the arrow keys, and so forth — that move the cell pointer upon making the cell entry. Text to Speech does not, however, speak a cell entry that you complete by clicking the Enter button on the Formula bar because this action does not move the cell pointer upon completing the cell entry.

CHAPTER 5 Printing the Masterpiece

177

10_9781119513322-ch05.indd 177 Trim size: 7.375 in × 9.25 in May 14, 2019 8:51 AM

Chapter  5

Printing the Masterpiece

F

or most people, getting data down on paper is what spreadsheets are all about (all the talk about a so-called paperless offi ce to the contrary).

Everything — all the data entry, all the formatting, all the formula checking, all the things you do to get a spreadsheet ready — is really just preparation for printing its information.

IN THIS CHAPTER

» Previewing pages in Page Layout view and printouts in Backstage view

» Quick printing from the Quick Access toolbar

» Printing all the worksheets in a workbook

» Printing just some of the cells in a worksheet

» Changing page orientation

» Printing the whole worksheet on a single page

» Changing margins for a report

» Adding a header and footer to a report

» Printing column and row headings as print titles on every page of a report

» Inserting page breaks in a report

» Printing the formulas in your worksheet

178

PART 2 Editing Without Tears

10_9781119513322-ch05.indd 178 Trim size: 7.375 in × 9.25 in May 14, 2019 8:51 AM

In this chapter, you find out just how easy it is to print reports with Excel 2019.

Thanks to the program’s Print screen in Backstage view (Alt+FP), its Page Layout worksheet view, and its handy Page Layout tab on the Ribbon, you discover how to produce top-notch reports the first time you send the document to the printer (instead of the second or even the third time around).

The only trick to printing a worksheet is getting used to the paging scheme and learning how to control it. Many of the worksheets you create with Excel are not only longer than one printed page, but also wider. Word processors, such as Word 2019, page the document only vertically; they won’t let you create a document wider than the page size you’re using. Spreadsheet programs like Excel 2019, however, often have to break up pages both vertically and horizontally to print a worksheet document (a kind of tiling of the print job, if you will).

When breaking a worksheet into pages, Excel first pages the document vertically down the rows in the first columns of the print area (just like a word processor).

After paging the first columns, the program pages down the rows of the second set of columns in the print area. Excel pages down and then over until the entire document included in the current print area (which can include the entire worksheet or just sections) is paged.

When paging the worksheet, Excel doesn’t break up the information within a row or column. If not all the information in a row will fit at the bottom of the page, the program moves the entire row to the following page. If not all the information in a column will fit at the right edge of the page, the program moves the entire column to a new page. (Because Excel pages down and then over, the column may not appear on the next page of the report.)

You can deal with such paging problems in several ways, and in this chapter, you see all of them! After you have these page problems under control, printing is a proverbial piece of cake.