Understood in Context in Microsoft Excel 2010

Now there’s one more component of the 2010 interface you’ll want to know about, one which appears
only on occasion. When you add certain elements to your spreadsheet—e.g., one of those pivot tables,
or a chart, or a Sparkline, or a graphic object (say, a shape or a picture), and return to that object and
click on it, a command name alluding to that object suddenly pokes its head atop your screen. What
does that mean? Well, let’s return to our grading sheet, complete with those student-performance
Sparklines. Click on any cell containing a Sparkline, and you’ll trigger this display (Figure 1–21):

Figure 1–21.  The Sparkline Tools tab

Click that amber title (the color varies by whatever object you’re working with) and a new  set of
tab contents barges onscreen, overriding the tab with which you’d been working to date. What you see
now instead is a battery of options devoted to Sparklines alone (Figure 1–22):

Figure 1–22.  Sparkline tool buttons

Complete your Sparkline revisions, click on any other, non-Sparkline-bearing cell, and this tab
disappears, returning you to the previous tab. Whenever you click any Sparkline cell, that tab revisits
the screen (again, how Sparklines actually work is to be taken up in a later chapter). Thus these object-specific, now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t tabs give you swift access to the commands for working
with some special spreadsheet tools—exactly when you need them.