In the top right corner of your screen when excel is open you should see a
minus sign, an icon that looks like two sheets of paper and an x.
click on the two sheets of paper and that will reduce the sheet from full
screen. Then
move your mosue to the lower right area of the now smaller excel sheet, left
click and hold and drag the screen size, up or down or left or right until
you get the size you like.

"leckiegl" wrote:

when i open Excel it fills the whole screen but i want to be able to see my
desktop icons as well. how do i make the screen smaller