Changing Horizontal Orientation

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 2, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2002 and 2003


For those who use Excel 2002 or Excel 2003 in an international environment, you may be interested in knowing that you can change the horizontal orientation of a worksheet. Normally cell A1 is in the upper-left corner of the worksheet, but you can configure Excel so that cell A1 is in the upper-right corner of any worksheets you create. Follow these steps:

  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Excel displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the International tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The International tab of the Options dialog box.

  4. Near the bottom of the dialog box, choose the Right-to-Left radio button.
  5. Click on OK.

The change doesn't affect the workbook you have open, but it does affect any new workbooks you create.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3038) applies to Microsoft Excel 2002 and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Selecting Noncontiguous Ranges with the Keyboard

It's easy to select non-contiguous ranges using the mouse, but may seem more daunting if you are simply using the ...

Discover More

Adding Graphics to a Header or Footer

Excel makes it easy to add graphics to a header or footer. Here's the steps to make it happen.

Discover More

Opening a Backup File

If you have Word configured to save backup copies of your document, you may want to actually load one of those copies at ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

A Ruler in Excel

A few workarounds for the fact that Excel does not have a built-in ruler.

Discover More

Where Is that Name?

Want to easily see the location of named ranges in your worksheet? It's easy; all you need to do is use the familiar Zoom ...

Discover More

Conditionally Playing an Audio File

You can add audio files to an Excel worksheet, but what if you want a particular audio file to play only when a value in ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 5 + 3?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.