Excel Ribbon: A Beginner’s Guide to Organize and Custom Tabs

If you are still a beginner in Microsoft Excel, you must know about Ribbon. Because when you use Excel, you will always use this feature.

The Ribbon in Excel contains a group of menus which are also called Tabs. From this tab, you can use various Excel features.

So, in this guide, you will learn what each menu on the Excel Ribbon is used for.

What is Ribbon in Excel?

The Ribbon is a collection of Tabs and Icons at the top of the Excel interface which is divided into 4 main parts:

1. Tabs: A collection of commands to perform certain features in Excel. The tab on the Ribbon consists of 3 parts:
2. Groups: A collection of icons and commands grouped by function.
3. Dialog Launcher: This is the small arrow icon in the bottom right corner of the group. This icon is useful for loading all related features that aren’t in a group – this provides more complete options for the user.
4. Commands Button: This is a button to run certain features.

In the tab section, there are many useful features for optimizing your work using Excel such as Format Cells, Format Numbers, Borders, Page Layout, PivotTable, etc.

To better understand, I will explain one by one the menus contained in each Excel Tab.

#1 File

On the File Tab, there are several global Microsoft Excel menus. These menus include:

1. Info: To find out detailed information about the Workbook that is currently open.
2. New: To create a new Workbook.
3. Open: To open an existing Workbook.
4. Save: To save the current Workbook with an existing name.
5. Save As: To save a new or existing Workbook (being edited) using a new name/extension.
6. Print: To print the currently opened Excel file.
7. Share: To share Excel files online.
8. Export: To export data in Workbooks to other software.
9. Close: To close the current Workbook.
10. Accounts: To manage users’ Microsoft accounts.
11. Options: To customize Global Excel settings. For example, setting the AutoSave interval and so on.

#2 Home

The Home tab contains lots of menus and generally includes editing features. Each menu is grouped into several groups as follows:

1. Clipboard: For copy and paste activities including copy-paste special and Format Painter.
2. Font: To set the type, size, color for fonts, and cells, or create borders.
3. Alignment: To adjust the alignment of text, combine cells or separate cells into several lines in 1 cell (Wrap Text).
4. Number: To set the number format, such as creating decimal numbers, percent, or currency.
5. Styles: To set cell styles either manually or using criteria (Conditional Formatting).
6. Cells: To manage all existing cells such as setting column width and row height, adding or deleting rows/columns, etc.
7. Editing: To set advanced editing (data processing), for example using AutoSUM, Sort and Filter data, and data search features either with or without criteria.

Note: You will learn about these 7 features in the next chapter.

#3 Insert

The main function of the Excel Insert Tab is to insert some advanced Data Analysis features that you can later learn about in the Excel Data Analytics Handbooks.

Currently, there are 9 menus on the Insert Tab which function as follows:

1. Tables: To create Tables. Whether it’s using the table format feature or PivotTable.
2. Illustrations: Insert images, shapes, SmartArt Graphics, or screenshots into the Worksheet.
3. Add-ins: To add advanced features from Office Store, Bing Maps, etc.
4. Charts: To add graphs (charts) that illustrate the contents of your data.
5. Sparklines: To insert Sparklines such as Line, Column, and Win/Loss. In general, it is useful to see fluctuations in price movements.
6. Filters: To create interesting filters such as Slicer and Timeline.
7. Links: To add external links or connect the current Workbook to other Workbooks.
8. Text: For additional text editing such as creating text boxes, Headers and Footers (pages), Word Art, etc.
9. Symbols: To insert mathematical symbols or equations.

#4 Page Layout

Generally, the Page Layout tab is useful for adjusting paper size or page margins. But actually, that’s not all. Currently, there are 5 menu groups on the Page Layout Tab:

1. Themes: Excel provides a variety of built-in themes. You can use one of them.
2. Page Setup: To set paper such as paper size, margins, orientation, page breaks, etc.
3. Scale to Fit: To set how Excel prints the page.
4. Sheet Options: To adjust the Worksheet display such as showing or removing Gridlines, etc.
5. Arrange: To arrange the position of objects in the Worksheet.

#5 Formulas

As the name suggests, the Formulas Tab serves to organize Excel Formulas and Functions and is currently divided into 4 groups:

1. Function Library: This is a menu that contains all the functions in Microsoft Excel which are based on categories, such as Financial, Logical, Text, and so on.
2. Defined Names: To provide and manage the identity of an object such as Named Range, Table Name, and so on.
3. Formula Auditing: To check formulas and functions.
4. Calculation: To instruct Excel to execute or recalculate. Usually useful when you are analyzing large amounts of complex data.

#6 Data

As the name suggests, the Data Tab is useful for managing data as explained below:

1. Get External Data: To import data from other software into Excel.
2. Connections: To manage data connections. For example, table connections in Power Pivot, etc.
3. Sort & Filters: To set data sorting and data filtering either with or without criteria.
4. Data Tools: Additional tools for managing data. For example, to look for duplicate data or use What-if Analysis.
5. Outline: To create an outline in Excel. You can also create Sub Totals based on the outline.
6. Analysis (Additional): This feature will only be there if you add it manually. Its use is for statistical analysis such as Regression, t-test, ANOVA, etc.

#7 Review

Generally useful for reviewing the contents of your Worksheet.

1. Proofing: For text proofing. For example, spell-checking.
2. Language: To change the language in the Excel Program.
3. Comments: To set comments for each cell.
4. Changes: Generally used more often to lock Excel files (Protect).

#8 View

The View tab is mostly useful for customizing the appearance of an Excel Worksheet. Currently, there are 5 groupings as follows:

1. Workbook Views: To set how your Excel software interface displays. For example, to display Page Break Preview.
2. Show: Also set the interface display. However, focus more on the Gridline, Formula Bar, etc. features.
3. Zoom: To set the Zoom Level on the Excel interface. You can set Zoom-in and Zoom-Out.
4. Window: Feature to view several Sheets / Workbooks simultaneously.
5. Macros: Broadly speaking, this is a feature for adding additional programs of your own making that can be used in the Excel calculation process. I will discuss more details in the Excel VBA Guide Center (See Shortcuts).

So those are the 8 Tabs in the Excel Ribbon. Next, there are various tricks for customizing the Excel Ribbon. Let’s look at the following explanations:

How to Hide and Show Ribbon in Excel?

The Excel Ribbon takes up quite a lot of space which can reduce the viewing area of your Workbook.

However, Excel provides 3 options for hiding and displaying the Ribbon, namely:

• Auto-hide Ribbon: To hide all parts of the Ribbon.
• Show Tabs: To hide only groups and commands.
• Show Tabs and Commands: To display all parts of the Ribbon.

To hide the Ribbon, follow these steps:

1. Click the Ribbon Display Options icon.
2. Click Auto-hide Ribbon to hide the entire Excel Ribbon section. Results:

Note: Auto-hide Ribbon will also hide your Quick Access Toolbar and Workbook title.

Apart from that, you can also choose to only display Tabs by right-clicking on one of the tabs, and then selecting Collapse the Ribbon, as shown in the following image:

Want it faster? Use keyboard shortcuts!

Please press the Ctrl + F1 buttons simultaneously to show and hide the Tabs Ribbon.

Customize Ribbon Excel

By default, all Tabs on the Ribbon can help maximize your work. However, there are still many other secret features in Excel.

In standard conditions, these features aren’t available on the Ribbon. Therefore you can change and adapt the Ribbon to your needs.

If you want to create a custom Tab in Excel, please follow these steps to customize the following Excel Ribbon:

1. Right-click on any part of the Ribbon. Then select Customize the Ribbon.
   
2. In the Excel Options Window, Customize the Ribbon, and click New Tab.
   
3. You can change the Tab name as desired. You can also change the position of Custom Tabs by clicking the up/down arrows
   
4. Please select and click on the command you want. Then click Add. Please add new features according to your needs.
   
5. You can also change the group name in the custom tab. You can also create more than 1 group. If that’s enough, please click OK. The result is like the following image:
   

Contextual Tabs Ribbon in Excel

Apart from the 8 default Ribbon Tabs above, Excel also has a contextual tab called the Tools Tab.

This tab will be active automatically when you use special features in Excel such as PivotTables, Charts, Format Tables, or images.

Here’s the contextual appearance of Tabs when using the PivotTable feature:

Note: You can’t activate the Tools Tab via Customize. It only activates automatically when using special features.