Close/Disable help panel

[Brent212]

I'm constantly accidentally hitting F1 instead of F2, and annoyingly, F1 brings up the stupid help panel along the right side of the screen. Anyone know a quick keyboard shortcut to close it? Would be really nice if hitting F1 again did that. Or even better, if there's a way to disable it, that'd be awesome.

Maybe I'll just put some tape over the F1 key.

[vlady]

From Microsoft

For one workbook solution:
Press Alt+F11 to activate the Visual Basic Editor.
Press Ctrl+G to activate the Immediate window.
Type Application.OnKey "{F1}", ""
Press Enter.

Permanent solution:
Press Alt+F11 to activate the Visual Basic Editor.
Expand Personal.xlsb.
Double-click the ThisWorkbook item under Personal.xlsb.
Create the following code:
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Application.OnKey "{F1}", ""
End Sub

Quit Excel, and answer Yes to the prompt to save changes to Personal.xlsb.
Start Excel again.