Annoying Excel issue

DrDolittle_2

I have Excel in the toolbar at the bottom of my desktop.

If I rightclick the icon I have choices of pinned workbooks and recent workbooks.

Now the document that I am using the most doesn't appear. I always have to access it via My Documents.

It would be so nice to access it quickly from the toolbar. Why does it not appear as a recent document that I can then pin?

Using Excel 2007 on a windows 7 pc.

Thanks.

m5rcc

Would it not be faster still to press the Windows key + the first few letters of the file, then press enter?

tuggy12

Find the document that you want using explorer.
Right click on the document and drag down to the excel icon in the task bar at the bottom.
This will pin that file to the excel icon. (The file itself will not be moved)

DrDolittle_2

Thanks,
I didn't know you could do that.

DrDolittle_2

tuggy12 wrote: »

Find the document that you want using explorer.
Right click on the document and drag down to the excel icon in the task bar at the bottom.
This will pin that file to the excel icon. (The file itself will not be moved)

I've just tried that and it pins to Microsoft Open XML converter and there is now a new icon at the bottom.
If I right click the icon, I can see the file I want though.

Funny that it won't pin to Excel like the other documents did.

DrDolittle_2

m5rcc wrote: »

Would it not be faster still to press the Windows key + the first few letters of the file, then press enter?

No, that didn't do anything when I tried.

m5rcc

DrDolittle wrote: »

No, that didn't do anything when I tried.

Pressing the Windows keys pulls up the Start Menu.

Typing the first few letters of the file will pull up files or folders to those initial letters....

DrDolittle_2

m5rcc wrote: »

Pressing the Windows keys pulls up the Start Menu.

Typing the first few letters of the file will pull up files or folders to those initial letters....

Ah, thank you. It worked that time. I was typing letters while still pressing the Windows key.

Yes that works too although I now have it pinned ( in a weird way) to the toolbar.

Thanks for your help.

NeilF3485

This (or at least a similar issue) happened to me, and is pretty common.
All of a sudden I had no recent files showing when I right clicked on the Excel icon on the start bar.

Can't remember the exact fix I used for it, but it basically involved deleting the history from the hidden folder, and then it started to re-populate again as I used files (you won't get back the old list). Common belief is that it's certain files over 1MB which cause it to break, and so you need to delete the system file related to it.

I believe this was the solution which worked for me:

Click Start, Run (or windows key + R)
Copy and paste this %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
Delete files over 1MB (if none, delete all)

Then open the file that wasn't showing, close it again and see if it now appears on the recent list.

This should then fix the issue - if not, try unpinning and repinning excel to the taskbar after doing it.

Let me know if it works, if it doesn't then I'll look again, but I think this is the solution which worked for me.

m5rcc

Of course if you use CCleaner often, it will delete all the "recent items".

DrDolittle_2

NeilF3485 wrote: »

This (or at least a similar issue) happened to me, and is pretty common.
All of a sudden I had no recent files showing when I right clicked on the Excel icon on the start bar.

Can't remember the exact fix I used for it, but it basically involved deleting the history from the hidden folder, and then it started to re-populate again as I used files (you won't get back the old list). Common belief is that it's certain files over 1MB which cause it to break, and so you need to delete the system file related to it.

I believe this was the solution which worked for me:

Click Start, Run (or windows key + R)
Copy and paste this %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
Delete files over 1MB (if none, delete all)

Then open the file that wasn't showing, close it again and see if it now appears on the recent list.

This should then fix the issue - if not, try unpinning and repinning excel to the taskbar after doing it.

Let me know if it works, if it doesn't then I'll look again, but I think this is the solution which worked for me.

Thank you but I've achieved it now following Tuggy12's suggestion. What I had failed to do was drag it and let go over the Excel icon. I just let go over an empty part of the tool bar.
I've now done exactly as instructed and it's there nicely pinned to the Excel icon.
Thanks all for the help.