On my system Alt+F4 shuts down Excel. Of course I tried it before I
rejected it.

Ctrl+F1 worked perfectly to close the help child window while leaving Excel
open.

Ctrl+F1 is the keyboard shortcut to hide/show the TaskPane in XL2003.
Since the TaskPane is actually a toolbar, it doesn't support the
keyboard shortcuts associated with a 'normal' window. That doesn't mean
the TaskPane isn't a window.., it's just a window of type 'CommandBar'
and so supports behavior associated with a commandbar.

All other versions of Excel display help in its own window and so
Alt+F4 is the standard Windows keyboard shortcut to close any window
that has focus. In XL2003, there is no help window per se, and so
Alt+F4 closes Excel because it has the focus.

--
Garry

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