Excel Status Bar

Status bar is inevitably an essential tool of Microsoft Excel. As the name suggests, the primary role of this feature is to show the status in the lower edge of your worksheet. You might have used the status bar for knowing the equations in Excel, evaluating the calculations for different formulas, or looking at the number of pages quickly. But do you know the status bar is a lot more than this? With some expertise, you can customize the bar as per your need.

In this tutorial, we will cover all the details starting from defining a status bar and various examples implementing the advantages of this feature.

What is a Status Bar?

"The status bar is defined as the name for the bottom panel of the Excel worksheet window, which shows several information about your worksheet. This feature can be further utilized to display functions such as the sum, count, and average of the selected cells."

Like all other window applications, Microsoft has its status bar at the bottom of the worksheet window. Status Bar is actively used to display the information related to the current worksheet. There are default options that are already there in the status bar though you can also customize your status bar by following the below steps:

Right-click on your status bar.
As a result, the customise scroll bar window will pop up displaying various options.
You can choose any option as per your requirement.

In the above image, as you can see, we have currently checked the average, count, sum, and other various options.

We have covered enough about status bar. Now let's gets our hands dirty with some practical sessions.

Example #1: To calculate the Average & Total marks using Status Bar

This example is certainly for you if you are new to Excel and have little knowledge about Excel functions and formulas. We are given the Excel sheet that contains a list of data of various students.

We will calculate the student's total and average marks in his exams using the status bar.

Following are the step-by-step explanation to calculate the sum and average marks using the status bar:

Firstly, we will select the cells for which we want to calculate the total marks and average. In our case we will select the cell B2:B7.
After selecting the cells, look at the status bar. As a result, you will notice it has already calculated the sum and average of the selected cells.

Simple Isn't!

Now, you can also cross check the output of the same using Excel inbuilt Sum and Average function.

Select a cell and start the formula with equal to followed by the SUM function. In its parameter, select the range of cells for which you want to find the sum of total marks i.e, =SUM (A2:A7). Press the enter key.
You will have the following result.
In another cell, we will insert the AVERAGE formula, start the formula with equal to followed by the AVERAGE function. In its parameter, select the range B1: B5 and press the enter key.

Again select the same cells and cross-check in the status bar. You will find both the values match the built-in function.

Example #2: Functions using Status Bar

Consider the below given Excel data,

We have taken a sample data of sales done by the sales executives of a certain agency.

Suppose you asked to quickly fetch the raw data and noted down the calculations of sales done by each executive in a given month or the total sales the company made in the month of April.

Following are the steps to achieve the same using status bar:

To get the details of the total sales made by Shantanu, we will select cell B7:D7 and look at the status bar.
You can also quickly calculate the total sales achieved in the month of February collectively by the sales executives. All we have to do is to select the cells A2:A7 and look at the status bar.
You can also easily look for the average sales achieve in the months of Feb, Mar & April by Rahul. Again, select cells the B2:D2 and look at the status bar.

The status bar is not limited to Average or SUM and has more capabilities than you can even think of. We will cover some of them in the below examples:

Example #3 - To customize the Status Bar

Again, we have taken the same sample data that shows the total sales done by the sales executives of an xyz company. What if you want to calculate the minimum and maximum sales quickly? Do you know you can compute the same using the status bar by following the below steps:

Right-click on your status bar. It will show the customize status bar window. Choose the Enable maximum and minimum option from the dialog window.
A tick mark will appear, representing that both options have been selected in your status bar.
Since we have enabled the minimum and maximum option. Next, we wills select the data i.e., B2:B7.
Now, have a look at the status bar, and you will find the output for maximum sales and minimum sales for the selected data.

Example #4 - Zoom Slider Option in Excel

One of the most frequently used tools in in the status bar is the zoom slider option. It is a handy tool that quickly allows the Excel user to zoom in or zoom worksheet for a better readability. Any user can adjust the worksheet size according to their convenience.

At the bottom right corner of your status bar, you will notice a zoom slider in the bottom right of the status bar.

There are + and - icons to zoom in and zoom out your worksheet. If you move the slider towards the + sign it will zoom the text of your worksheet. will increase the size.
If you move it towards the - sign it will decrease the text size of your worksheet.
In the below example, we have increased the size to 150%.