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For some more information about calculating your formulas, please refer to the Calculating Formulas page.

Calculation

Automatic - Calculates all dependent formulas every time you make a change to a value, formula or name. Any workbook that contains formulas will be automatically calculated when it is opened. This is the default calculation setting.

Automatic except tables - Calculates all dependent formulas except those in data tables. You can calculate the formulas in data tables by pressing the "Calc Now" button.

Manual - Calculates only when requested by the user.

Recalculate before save - Calculates all dependent formulas in the worksheet before it is saved.

Calculate Now - Calculates all open worksheets, including data tables, and updates all open chart sheets.

Calc Sheet - Calculates the active worksheet and any charts and chart sheets linked to this worksheet.

Iteration

Iteration - This can be used to restrict the iteration for goal seeking or for resolving circular references. Unless you specify otherwise, Microsoft Excel stops after 100 iterations or when all values change by less than 0.001.

Maximum iterations - This is the maximum number of iterations used before iteration will stop.

Maximum change - This is the maximum number of iterations the workbook will perform to resolve formulas when the workbook is re-calculated. The default is 100.

Workbook Options

The following options are all workbook specific and affect all the worksheets in the active workbook.

Update remote references - Calculates and updates formulas that include references to other applications and any external functions using a DDE.

Precision as displayed - Changes all the underlying values in your worksheet to be the same as their displayed valued. This will change values permanently from having 15 significant figures to whatever format is displayed. This cannot be undone.

1904 date system - Changes the starting date from which all dates are calculated from January 1, 1900, to January 2, 1904.

Save external link values - Saves copies of values contained in an external document linked to a Microsoft Excel worksheet. If a worksheet with links to large ranges on an external document requires an unusually large amount of disk space or takes a very long time to open, clearing the Save external link values check box can reduce the disk space and time needed to open the worksheet.

Accept labels in formulas - Uses label names in formulas if ranges on your worksheet have row or column labels. Turning this off though mean that any labels that have been used will be replaced with their corresponding cell references. For more information please refer to the Natural Language Formulas page.