How to Use the Selection Pane to Manage Shapes in Your Excel Worksheet

Many users will ignore the functionality of selection pane in Excel. Therefore, in this article, we will talk about this feature in detail.

The selection pane will take effect on shapes, including pictures, shapes, comments and other objects in an Excel worksheet. If in an excel worksheet, there are many such objects, you will be unable to deal with them easily. At this time, you can turn to the selection pane for help.

Activate the Selection Pane

Before you manage shapes in your Excel worksheet, you need to activate the selection pane. And there are two ways to achieve this task.

Method 1:

  1. Click the button “Find & Select” in the toolbar.
  2. And then click the option “Selection Pane” in the menu.Selection Pane

Therefore, the selection pane will appear on the right of the interface.The Selection Pane

Method 2:

  1. Click the tab “Page Layout” in the ribbon.
  2. And then click the button “Selection Pane” in the “Arrange” area in the toolbar.Click Selection Pane

Thus, you have also activated the selection pane in the worksheet. You can use wither of the two methods according to your habit.

Manage Shapes

In the selection pane, you can see that all the shapes in the worksheet will appear in the pane. Therefore, you can manage those shapes in this pane.Shape in Selection Pane

Hide or Show Shapes

If you want to show or hide one shape quickly, you can click the corresponding eye in the selection pane. Here we use the picture as an example. The name of the picture in this pane is “Picture 3” because we inserted it after the other shapes. And now we click the eye to hide it.Hide Picture

When you click, you will see that the picture in the worksheet becomes invisible. And the next time of you want to show it, you can click the eye again.

On the other hand, if you want to hide all the shapes in the worksheet, you can directly click the button “Hide All” on the bottom of the selection pane. Thus, all the shapes will be invisible.Hide All

When you need to show them, you can click the “Show All” to make those shapes visible.

Manage Order

Instead of showing or hiding shapes, you can also change the order of those shapes. In the selection pane, the shapes of comments will be in a separate classification. And other shapes will be in the second classification. The first shape that you have inserted lies in the bottom of the pane. And the last shape lies in the top of the pane. But sometimes you need to change the order. For example, you want arrange them according to the order that you have inserted them. In the pane, you cannot directly drag the shapes. You may follow the steps below.

  1. Click one of the shapes in the selection pane. Here we click the “Rectangle 1”.
  2. And then click the arrow “Bring Forward” of the “Re-order”. Thus, the shape will move forward.Reorder
  3. Click the arrow again. Thus, the rectangle will be the first in this classification.
  4. Repeat the steps below and re-order other shapes. If needed, you can also click the arrow “Send Backward”. Thus, the shape order will be ranked according to your need.

New Order

Rename Shapes

Except for the above two managements, you can also rename shapes in the selection pane.

  1. Click the shape that you want to change the name. Here we click the chart as an example.
  2. And then click it again. Thus, the name will be in the editing condition.
  3. Now you can input your new name into the text box.Rename Shape
  4. After you have finished inputting, press the button “Enter” on the keyboard. Or you can also use your mouse and click any other place in the worksheet. Thus, you have changed the name of the chart. You can also follow the steps and change the name according to your need.

Identify Virus and Malware

Among all the reasons that will cause damage to Excel, virus and malware take a large part. Sometimes even if you are only visiting a webpage, the virus or malware will invade your computer. And the result can be either not series or disastrous. No matter what result you meet, you cannot take it lightly. Whenever you find your Excel corrupts, you should take actions. And the best solution is using a third party Excel recovery tool. This tool is able to repair xls data corruption. It can retrieve all the data and information in even a severely damaged Excel file.

Author Introduction:

Anna Ma is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including repair doc file error and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com

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