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Using the research services available in the Research task pane, you can search for definitions, stock quotes, and other related references, and insert them directly in your worksheet (worksheet: The primary document that you use in Excel to store and work with data. Also called a spreadsheet. A worksheet consists of cells that are organized into columns and rows; a worksheet is always stored in a workbook.). The Research task pane opens conveniently next to your worksheet so you can use the dictionary or thesaurus, search the Web, or even get translation services without leaving your workspace.

The Research task pane also puts you in easy reach of research services that supply business and financial data, which is helpful in Excel. For example, you may want to learn more about a company's revenue or stock price history, and include that information when creating financial reports.

Some research services will even lead you to add-ins and other components that you may want to download. For example, the Office 2003 Stock Quotes Add-in allows you to perform actions such as inserting a stock table or inserting refreshable stock data.

Search for information in the Research task pane

Start the Research task pane by clicking Research on the Tools menu, or by clicking the Research button on the Standard toolbar. To find the information you need, simply enter search text in the pane. Search will look up the information in a variety of research and reference services that are categorized under the following headings:

• All Reference Books contains a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a translation service.
• All Research Sites contains an encyclopedia, MSN Search, and other research sites, including third-party premium, fee-based content.
• All Business and Financial Sites contains company profile and stock quote services such as Gale Company Profiles and MSN Money Stock Quotes.

   Note   Not all languages support this category. Available services also depend on your location and whether you're connected to the internet to work online.

To narrow your search, you can specify a category or an individual service contained within a category. For example, to insert stock quotes in your worksheet, it might be faster if you search for them directly on the MSN Money Stock Quotes site.

 Note   If you are not connected to the Internet and are working offline, you only have access to research services that are installed with Office: a thesaurus and a bilingual dictionary.

Learn more about the available research services

When you are connected to the internet to work online, even more services may be available and can help you as follows:

Activate research services for searching

You decide which research services you want to use for searching. In the Research Options dialog box, you can:

• Activate research services that are already on your list of services.
• Update or remove services.
• Enter additional services.

When a service is already installed but not activated, simply select its check box to include it in your next search. If you haven't used an installed service for a while, you may want to update it so that it's current. And if you don't plan to use a service anymore, you can remove it from the list.

To include additional services, enter the internet address of the provider whose services you want to add to the list of available services. For example, if you have Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 installed, you can add a SharePoint Portal Server site to the list of All Intranet Sites and Portals. In the Research task pane, click Research Options, and then click Add Services. In the Address box, type:

http://your root directory/_vti_bin/search.asmx

Control the use of the Research task pane

To help filter out potentially offensive content or to prevent unauthorized users from changing your search settings, you can use parental control settings and password protection to control the use of the Research task pane.

Parental control options and a password can be specified in the Parental Control dialog box. In the Research task pane, click Research Options, and then click Parental Control.

Images in this article were excerpted from Training on Microsoft Office Online.