When you’re going into the program options for the newest MS Office programs you might feel a bit overwhelmed.
There’s lots and lots going on in those dialog boxes… categories such as proofing, advanced, save, etc… and then within each of those there are sections of options such as editing, display, print… and if that were not enough there are options in there program specific.… Continue reading
We all know that the newest version of Microsoft Office programs has a lot of really cool features.
We also know that many of these features just don’t work with older file formats.
I can’t speak for you, but I have a lot of files that were created with Office 2002 and I’m not about to start over just to access the new cool… Continue reading
Have you tried the Delete key when using OpenOffice Calc?
What happened?
Well, that depends upon where you were…
As in, were you in a cell or the formula bar editing content or did you have an entire cell(s) selected?
If you’ve got your cursor in the cell data (or the formula bar) editing the information then the… Continue reading
Did you know that you can convert .PDF documents to Word documents for free on the web?
If you have access to the Internet, rather than a program, I can recommend a website to you. This website is zamzar.com/. It’s entirely free and each time that you want to convert a PDF to Word, OpenOffice etc, you simply go on the site, upload the document, select… Continue reading
Here at Worldstart, we’ve discussed autoformatting in MS Word, but did you know that it can also be done in OpenOffice Calc? Using the Autoformat feature, you can quickly enhance otherwise plain looking spreadsheets.
You start by selecting a group of cells.
Once you’ve selected the cells, go to the Format menu and choose Autoformat.
Often in Excel we’re looking to create headers and footers with data information in them. Things like page numbers, file names, dates, times, etc…
Anyway, while we’re creating our headers and footers there’s always some place where we can choose to insert this stuff, but wouldn’t it be faster if we just knew a couple of characters to do the same job?
Yeah -… Continue reading
As I’m sure most of you know, when working in MS Excel, Ctrl + Home will take you to the upper left corner of your worksheet (cell A1).
Do you know where Ctrl + End will land you?
Let’s all hope it’s not in the bottom most corner of a worksheet! Have you ever scrolled out right or down to find out just how big Excel makes its worksheets?
Well… Continue reading
Did you know that there’s a faster way to enter cell references in Excel formulae? I’m talking about a way that doesn’t involve typing cell addresses. Did you know?!
Interested? (Yeah, I thought you might be!)
Here’s the scoop.
Next time you’re entering a formula and you get to a cell reference (like A5, for example), instead of typing A5, use… Continue reading
To extend our previous discussion about Data Bars to show how a piece of data in a list stacks up against the rest I thought that we might take a look at the conditional formatting options within the Top/Bottom rules.
Basically, they’re rules you can use to visually point out the top (top values, top percent of items, above average, etc.) and/or the bottom items in a… Continue reading
Sometimes you just need to see how the data stacks up.
You’ve got a string of numbers and you need to visually see how they compare.
Is one value way bigger than the rest? Are they distributed fairly evenly or at most of the numbers higher than the others? Lower than the others?
Whatever you need to… Continue reading
Ever find yourself staring at a section of and Excel worksheet and feeling your eyes cross as you look and look for something in particular.
All those cells, all those numbers… I can feel the headache coming on now… it can just be too much sometimes!
Want a quick way to view that range of cells up close and personal? Maybe a way that… Continue reading
If you’re an Excel user who tends to use the Hide feature for columns and rows, then you’ve probably run into this problem a time or two.
When you chose to hide either Column A or Row 1 were you able to get it back?
It can be quite tricky since we usually highlight the column or row on each side of the hidden… Continue reading
Did you know that you can get Excel to rank a set of values… without rearranging the data?
It’s like sorting data without actually sorting.
Basically what we do is tell Excel to compare all the data in the range of cells we designate and then it numbers them in either ascending or descending order (your choice).
For example, maybe you… Continue reading
Have you ever had some data that needs to be pasted in around some already existing information?
Maybe you have a setup something like this:
Then let’s suppose that you need to produce a report where the commission rate is replaced by the actual commission amount. Unfortunately, in the example above, you just happen to have that calculated… Continue reading
How many times have you found that you’ve put very important information buried in the center of an Excel worksheet?
Whatever the information is, it’s important and you need to present it well.
Is it information that can, or maybe should, be presented so that it stands out – font, text size, color, whatever you deem appropriate.
But all… Continue reading
I’m sure that we all know about the wonders of the format painter in all of the Microsoft Office Programs but did you know that in Excel you can get it to paint more than one format type at a time?
No, probably not – but it’s definitely worth the time to take a look.
How many times have you had multiple formats within… Continue reading
Ever have an Excel column or row that is designed to continually expand with additional data?
Do you have calculations – may a sum or average or whatever – from the set of data?
And when the amount of data increases what do you do with your formulas?
If you’re changing the cell range each time then I know… Continue reading
When you’re highlighting entire rows or columns in MS Excel the program will let you know how many have been selected as you go.
But, have you ever noticed that you can’t get that same information when you’re highlighting a range of cells?
I mean, we often need just a partial row and column and that handy-dandy little counter doesn’t… Continue reading
Ever find that you have part of an Excel 2007 worksheet that you need others to see. That is, they need to see the information displayed but in no way, shape or form do they need to actually possess the worksheet itself?
Basically – they need an “electronic print out” of a portion of a worksheet – in other words, you need so show them a picture… Continue reading
Do you find that referring to cell ranges in Excel formulas is a difficult task? Confused by the use of the colons, commas and spaces?
These characters are definitely a part of formula writing and if they aren’t used correctly, you’ll probably run into some problems.
So, here’s the information that can make formula writing with ranges a much more manageable task… Continue reading
Have a lot of sheets in your Excel workbooks?
Tired of scrolling left and right to find the right tab?
Or maybe you do the whole Ctrl + Page Up / Ctrl + Page Down thing, but that can be tedious too and let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to blow right by the sheet you need.
So, you’ve got to… Continue reading
If you use comments in MS Excel then you might find yourself wishing that there was a way to color code them.
Maybe some comments are notes you’ve made to yourself about double checking a formula, maybe others pertain to something entirely different.
Whatever your needs it might interest you to know that you can change the color of your comments with just a… Continue reading
Yeah, I know. Excel is primarily for numeric data , but let’s face it, we tend to use a lot of words in our Excel worksheets. Given all those words, it’s only reasonable to find that typos and misspelled words are occurring in Excel too.
So, it makes sense to me to understand (not just assume) what cells the spell check feature is actually checking. Did you… Continue reading
We all know that Word and PowerPoint have the Change Case feature. It’s an extremely useful tool, so much so that there are times when working in Excel I find myself wishing it was there too.
I realize that Excel really isn’t meant for a lot of text but there are times when you just can’t get around it.
At any rate, if you’ve… Continue reading
For many of us the font used in our documents, presentations and workbooks is a choice we actively make. When I’m creating something for others to see – which is most of the time – then I want it to look a certain way.
The easiest way to create something that I’ll like is to have my default font set to my
I obviously can’t speak for you but I do know that there are times when I’m working in Excel and find myself in need of a calculator.
I know, I know, there are quite a few of you wondering why I’d want a calculator when Excel can basically do all that for me.
Well, sometimes I just feel that it’s easier to… Continue reading
Have you ever noticed that MS Excel automatically tries to print everything on your worksheet?
This works wonderfully for most things we do, but what about the times when you only need part of a worksheet printed? Or, what do you do when you have a large worksheet containing many calculations that feed to one particular section of the sheet and you only want to… Continue reading
