Absolute Beginners Guide to Microsoft Office Excel 2003

As you enter formulas, you might notice that Excel immediately performs the calculation and displays the result. If you change a value in a cell that the formula uses, Excel instantly recalculates the entire worksheet! If you have a slow computer and a long worksheet with a lot of formulas, all this recalculating can slow down Excel significantly. To prevent Excel from bogging down, you can turn off the Auto Calculation feature. Here's what you do:

1. Open the Tools menu and choose Options . The Options dialog box appears.

2. Click the Calculation tab. The Calculation options appear, as shown in Figure 6.5.

   Figure 6.5. You can choose manual recalculation to boost Excel's performance.

3. Select Manual and click OK .

From now on, when you want to recalculate the worksheet, press F9 .