Format Cycles

At the core of Macabacus' formatting functionality are cycles. Cycles expedite most cell formatting operations, eliminating nearly 100% of the time required to perform them in most cases. For example, repeating the Fill Color Cycle shortcut keystroke three times will apply a different fill color to the selected cells with each keystroke. When the last format in the cycle is reached, keying the cycle's shortcut again will apply the first format in the cycle. All cycles can be triggered using keyboard shortcuts, although you can alternatively apply any cycle format using buttons on the Macabacus tab (for example, the Macabacus > Format > Color > Fill Colors menu).

Macabacus formatting cycles always start at the beginning of the cycle. This ensures that you can reach the third style in a cycle by keying the cycle's shortcut exactly three times, without pausing to give consideration to the existing formatting of the selected cell(s). The alternative approach calls for inspecting the existing format of cells and then determining how many keystrokes are required to reach the desired cycle, and which format to apply next in the cycle. This involves greater processing time by you and Macabacus, and is ultimately slower (although more intuitive to some).

In this documentation, you will find symbols next to tools whose shortcut keystrokes perform cycles.

_{This documentation refers to the latest Macabacus version. Some features and descriptions of these features may not apply to older versions of Macabacus. Update your Macabacus software to take advantage of the latest features.}