& (ampersand) in menu names still used?

[the Duke]

In previous version of Excel I used the "&" character within menu names
to guide the use of menus via the keyboard. Is that functionality
still there for Mac Office 2004? I see that the menu names still have
the "&" in the expected places when you examine their properties, but
"full keyboard access" doesn't seem to use them to help navigate menus.
What's going on?

tim

 

[JE McGimpsey]

In previous version of Excel I used the "&" character within menu names
to guide the use of menus via the keyboard. Is that functionality
still there for Mac Office 2004? I see that the menu names still have
the "&" in the expected places when you examine their properties, but
"full keyboard access" doesn't seem to use them to help navigate menus.
What's going on?

AFAIK, that functionality was last implemented in XL98. Certainly XLv.X
and XL04 don't use that. The properties still include the ampersand, I
suppose to remain compatible with WinXL.

Instead, you can assign keyboard shortcuts directly in XL04 using
Tools/Customize/Keyboard...

Full Keyboard Access is a different animal altogether. It's an OS
implementation, which, if anything, errs on the side of minimizing the
number of keys used (e.g., tab and arrows) rather than the number of key
presses. I think, though, that after the menu is highlighted using the
arrow keys, pressing the first letter of the command selects the command
(or cycles through all commands starting with that letter).


OTOH, you can set keyboard shortcuts for *any* application within the
System Preferences/Keyboard and Mouse dialog's Keyboard Shortcuts pane.
System shortcuts will override the shortcuts you set within XL.