Giving the Office Assistant Focus

Arvin wrote about a problem he was having with Excel starting. He likes the Office Assistant to pop up and offer a tip when Excel starts, but he doesn't like that he needs to keep grabbing the mouse to click on the OK button to close the window. He wondered if there is a way to give the Office Assistant focus so that he can use the keyboard to activate the OK button.

By default, when you first start Excel with the "startup tip" feature turned on, the Office Assistant should retain focus. Because of this, you can use the Esc key, Enter key, or Space Bar to close the tip.

If the Office Assistant doesn't retain focus, then it is likely that there is some startup macro or add-in being executed when Excel first starts. Check your various Startup folders for Excel and Office to see if this is the case.

If you still cannot figure out why the Office Assistant is losing focus, or if you need to continue using the macro or add-in that is changing the focus, then there is one thing you can do with the keyboard. All you need to do is press the Start button on the keyboard; it is the one that is typically on the bottom row and looks like it has the Windows icon on it. This displays the Start menu, but it also closes the startup tip. You can then press Esc, and the Start menu closes.