Let's be honest, default pivot tables in Excel are ugly.

But here's the good news: you can customize them to look great in all your files. Yes, future ones too!

In today's Between the Sheets, we’re exploring:

• changing default settings in Excel
• the history of the default Windows wallpaper
• Teams screensharing improvements

Excel Settings Worth Double-Checking

Most Excel users don't often venture out to Options. There's lots of them and they can be overwhelming.

But adjusting some default settings can save you time.

Here's a subjective list of settings worth exploring.

You probably won't need to change all of them. Find those that could make a difference to your workflow.

You can grab our handy cheat sheet to remind you of what they are.

Setting 1: What Happens When You Press ENTER

By default, when you hit Enter, the selection moves to the next cell down. You can change the direction or stay exactly where you are. Go to:

File > Excel Options > Advanced > Editing options > After pressing Enter, move selection.

Choose your preferred direction from the dropdown or uncheck the box to stay in the current cell.

This one is my favorite. I prefer to keep it off so when I press Enter, I stay in the same cell. Otherwise, I have to remember to hold down Control and press Enter, which is too much effort for something I need 80% of the time.

Setting 2: Shortcuts for Long Phrases

Excel doesn't have spellcheck. But it does have autocorrect.

You can use it a lot like a MacGyver type of trick (one of my favorite shows by the way). Just as MacGyver could turn a shoelace into a zipline, you can make Excel change short abbreviations into full sentences. This makes your work faster.

So if you catch yourself retyping the same phrases over and over, just create a shortcut. Then just type out your chosen abbreviation, and autocorrect will expand it automatically.

You'll find it under:

File > Excel Options > Proofing > Autocorrect options.

Setting 3: Create Custom Lists

Custom Lists are the handy feature that lets you fill down a list of related items by dragging your mouse. Some are already added for you - days of the week and months. But you can create your own. Go to:

File > Excel Options > Advanced > General > Edit Custom Lists
​(scroll till the end to get there).

You can add a new list manually, or import it from a range.

Any list you use repeatedly, like departments, divisions, regions, is worth adding. This saves you time in the long term.

Once you have the list, all you would need to do is type the first name in the list and then drag down.

Setting 4: Custom Pivot Table Layout

This is another one that I rely on a lot. I'm not a fan of the default compact pivot table layout. I always end up changing it to tabular form.

The good news is that you can change it globally, for all your future pivot tables. Go to:

File > Excel Options > Data > Data options > Edit Default Layout.

You can control the layout, grand and subtotals, and even uncheck the pesky option to resize column widths after every update.

You can also import the layout from an existing pivot table.

These are my top 4 suggestions.

For more details (and 2 more settings), check out the full blog post.

​

🤓 Geeky News

📷 Viewer and Import enhancements in the Photos app

​Microsoft Photos improved its user interface on Windows 11.

• Key actions like slideshow and sharing are now more accessible.
• The toolbar includes app shortcuts that allow you to open and edit the photo in a different Microsoft app.
• A dynamic zoom slider makes adjusting image size much quicker. You can also enter a custom value.
• The file size and resolution of an image now appear along the bottom of the viewer window.
• The import feature helps manage photo and video transfers from smartphones and other connected devices.
• You can also expect performance improvements, with faster load times.

These updates are currently rolling out to Windows Insiders.

👥 Improved screensharing in Teams

Next time you're sharing your screen during a Teams meeting, you should have more flexibility. You can move the Presenter toolbar anywhere on the screen so that it doesn't block important content.

There's also a new toolbar feature. Optimize lets users manually fix video playback.

These features are available to Teams Public Preview and Microsoft 365 Targeted release users.

🧑‍✈️ Copilot in Excel handles complex formulas

I find Copilot in Excel pretty limited. There's still a lot it can't do.

Recently Microsoft announced new capabilities for Copilot in Excel. It can now handle text transformations in columns.

They demonstrated a couple of examples. Notice that Copilot went for the "old-school" approach to text extraction using MID and FIND instead of the new TEXTSPLIT function, which makes for a simpler and shorter formula.

TEXTSPLIT works well with multiple delimiters, just like I show here.

But Copilot only works with official Excel tables which don't accept formulas that spill the results, like TEXTSPLIT. Not working with normal and spilled ranges is one of its greatest limitations.

I'm glad Copilot is improving but I'm still not wowed.

​

💚 What does your desktop background say about you?

Take a walk down memory lane of Windows desktop backgrounds. This article breaks down the stories behind the famous wallpapers, going all the way back to Windows 95.

You'll discover the backstory of how the iconic green hills of Windows XP came to be. Read what motivated every wallpaper since. Microsoft put a lot of thought into each design.

Meanwhile, here's my desktop:

And that's Anna's from my team:

Yep. My preferred desktop background is solid gray color with no icons. I always uncheck "Show desktop icons" so it's clean. It's all about minimal distractions.

All the thought and effort Microsoft puts into the design, and then there are people like us... 🤣

​

👏 Power Stories

We have a new Excel Black Belt in our midst! 🥋

Deary completed our Black Belt Excel Bundle. That's quite an achievement - congratulations!

This package combines our Excel courses, from Essentials to Advanced. Black Belt students master such skills as Power Query, Power Pivot, DAX, VBA, dashboard design, new functions and advanced formulas.

Congrats again! Enjoy putting your powerful new skills into practice 😊

See you next week,

Leila

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