Help viewer window masks spreadsheet and can't be closed

[Stuart Weylandsmith]

Mac OSX 10.4.11
Office 11.3.7

I can¹t shut the help viewer when I have opened it with the help menu. I
don¹t have the red, yellow and green buttons or any cancel or OK buttons on
the window. Consequently, once open the help view just sits there, masking
any spreadsheet I might have under it and refusing to release control back
to excel. It doesn¹t appear to stop me using any other programs though eg:
this eMail client.

Any thoughts?

Stuart

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Stuart,

Use the keyboard and press Apple+W to close the window, or Apple+Q to quit
the application.

Still not enough? Then use Option+Apple+Escape to force quit (or hold Option
key down and click on the dock icon).

-Jim

Mac OSX 10.4.11
Office 11.3.7

I can¹t shut the help viewer when I have opened it with the help menu. I don¹t
have the red, yellow and green buttons or any cancel or OK b uttons on the
window. Consequently, once open the help view just sits there, masking any
spreadsheet I might have under it and refusing to release control back to
excel. It doesn¹t appear to stop me using any other programs though eg: this
eMail client.

Any thoughts?

Stuart

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Stuart Weylandsmith]

Thanks,

Apple+Q and the forced quit were what I had been using although these are a
bit drastic just to exit help. I had forgotten about the close window
command. All works so thankyou


Stuart

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I can¹t shut the help viewer when I have opened it with the help menu. I
don¹t have the red, yellow and green buttons or any cancel or OK buttons on
the window. Consequently, once open the help view just sits there, masking
any spreadsheet I might have under it and refusing to release control back
to excel. It doesn¹t appear to stop me using any other programs though eg:
this eMail client.

Any thoughts?

Yeah, the Help window is a PITA all around. You can reset it to the
default position on your screen (with all buttons visible) if you, with
all Office apps closed, trash the

~:Libraryreferences:Microsoft:com.microsoft.Office.prefs.plist

file. If you don't want to lose any of your other settings, you can use
the Property List Editor app to change (again with all Office apps
closed) the

Help\Help_Top

and

Help\Help_Left

keypairs in that file, to, say, 100 each. Reopen XL and position and
size the window as desired.