Make Excel 2007 Read Spreadsheets To You

This article was written by MysticGeek, a tech blogger at the How-To Geek Blogs.

Instead of looking between a hard copy of data and comparing it to the data entered on the spreadsheet you can make Excel read your spreadsheet to you while you are looking at the hard copy version.

Now for this to work we need to add some commands to the quick access toolbar. In the customize dialog, you’ll have to choose All Commands, and then add all the commands that start with “Speak”. (More on customizing the toolbar)

make-excel-2007-read-spreadsheets-to-you photo 1

You should see those items in your quick access toolbar now…

make-excel-2007-read-spreadsheets-to-you photo 2 

Now select the cells you need to compare in your spreadsheet.

make-excel-2007-read-spreadsheets-to-you photo 3

Finally we just need to choose to have Excel speak by rows or speak by columns. Press the Speak Cells button, and Excel starts reading the rows or columns.  To stop it just hit the Stop Speaking Cells button.

make-excel-2007-read-spreadsheets-to-you photo 4

Of course you will need to have speakers connected to your PC for this to work.  You can also change the sound and speed of the voice by going into Speech Properties.

More stories

Fun at Work: Microsoft Word "Easter Egg"

This isn’t exactly an easter egg, because it’s actually documented in Microsoft’s knowledge base, but it’s one of those features that you just weren’t expecting so it still qualifies.

Tabbed Explorer Add-on for Windows Vista (and an Up Button too!)

I’ve been hoping for a Tabbed explorer add-on to Windows Vista ever since I made the switch, but what most of you have been talking about is the lack of an Up button like XP used to have. Reader Shawn wrote in with a solution for both of our problems: QTTabBar, an add-on for Explorer that gives you

Add Search Forms to the Firefox Search Bar

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could add search plugins for any search form to the Firefox Search Bar, instead of having to create the plugin yourself or wait for the site owner to stop being lazy and make one?

Disable Windows Calendar in Windows Vista

If you don’t use the built-in Windows Calendar or use it to display your Google calendar, you might be interested in removing the application from Windows Vista.

Scan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.Web

If you frequently download files from suspicious sites, it’s probably worth it to check for viruses Before you download, instead of waiting to see if your regular anti-virus software will catch it after you download.

Why Does My Password Expire in Windows?

A reader on the forum asked yesterday why his password kept expiring on his Windows Vista installation, so here’s the answer for everybody: Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate all have a built-in feature to allow user accounts to have a password expiration.

Finding RSS Subscriber Counts Through Apache Logs

If you’ve declined to use a service like FeedBurner to handle your RSS feeds, you might wonder how many subscribers you actually have. This also works well for finding subscriber counts to specific categories or comment posts on your site, which you typically wouldn’t run through FeedBurner.

Stop Windows Update from Hijacking the Sleep/Shutdown Button

As an avid user of the Sleep function on my laptop, I’ve been more than irritated with Windows 7 or Vista’s habit of changing the Sleep/Shutdown button into an “Install Updates and Shut Down” button whenever there are updates from Windows Update.