Not many things can aggravate me more than when I’ve got to transfer page setup information from one worksheet to another.
Often, I’ll set up a worksheet not realizing that later I’ll need to add another worksheet in the workbook that needs all the same settings.
Since I’ve just added the sheet it comes with the default settings
As any regular user of MS Excel can tell you, the Merge & Center command is truly a handy feature.
It allows you to select multiple cells then by using the command the cells are merged into one large cell and the cell contents are center justified.
I love it – makes for easy table titles centered above all the columns of data and… Continue reading
We all know that in MS Excel the bottom right corner of a cell selection is called the Fill Handle.
It’s an extremely useful tool. With just a drag and drop of the fill handle will copy information or continue a series of data in consecutive cells without the need for the whole copy / paste thing.
What could be… Continue reading
As many MS Excel users know, you can highlight a column and then through the Format menu, Column sub-menu choice (for Excel 2007 it’s the Home tab of the Ribbon, Cells section, Format button), you can choose the AutoFit Selection option. What this does is make the column just wide enough to fit the longest piece of data in the selection.
It’s a great thing, with no… Continue reading
Navigating an Already Selected Range
Have a large range selected in MS Excel?
Need to move the selected cell, within the highlight, to another location to check data or functions?
I know you’re not considering the idea of simply clicking somewhere else, taking a look at your data and then reselecting the range all over again, are you?
Let’s hope there’s a better way!
Here’s a list
Moving Backwards
Ever find yourself about to hit the Enter key in MS Excel and realize you need to move up a cell to fix something?
What did you do?
Most people go ahead and use the Enter key and then use the arrow keys (or mouse) to move back to the cell above.
This works, but doesn’t it seem like there should be a more efficient
More Or Less
Find yourself either inserting or deleting a lot of rows and/or columns in MS Excel?
Tired of looking for the correct button on the Ribbon or command from the Insert menu?
Yeah, me too.
So here’s an alternative that you just might find as helpful as I do.
To begin, highlight the number of rows or columns you are looking to insert. (Be sure to highlight the… Continue reading
Yep – you read it correctly… you can extend the data used to create an Excel chart using a copy / paste maneuver.
Previously we’ve discussed using the data outline to extend what is included on the chart. (Click here to view the tip using this technique.)
I’ve got to say that extending the data outline is definitely an easy route to… Continue reading
or two weeks… or maybe just every other day…
Ever find that you need to have a list of dates that are evenly spaced apart. Maybe Wednesday of this week and the dates of all the Wednesdays that follow?
Whatever the pattern of the dates, it sure would be nice to not need a calendar or counting day-by-day to find them all the time… Continue reading
Have you ever looked at an MS Excel worksheet and wondered how long it was going to take you to select only those cells that contain text or formulas or numbers or those cells that have errors?
Plus, while you’re wondering that, you’re just dreading the old Ctrl key + click, click and click some more on all cells that meet the criteria.
Maybe… Continue reading
Find yourself printing an Excel worksheet just for editing purposes? Let’s face it, not everyone does their best editing on the screen… some people just need to have it on paper with pen in hand to do quality editing work.
However, if you’re like me then it begins to feel like a waste of resources.
Ink and toner aren’t cheap so printing… Continue reading
I’m sure that anyone who works in MS Excel has noticed that it has a habit of trying to finish a piece of data for you.
Excel likes to think of that habit as helpful and it’s called AutoComplete.
Well… I can admit that there are select times when it can be helpful but I’ve got to say that for the Excel work I… Continue reading
Okay, so you’ve used the Find/Replace function in MS Excel with a lot of success before, right?
But, let’s just say you now have a multiple worksheet file and you have to search for replacements on several (or all) of the worksheets. What do you do?
You could run the Find/Replace on the first worksheet, switch to the next sheet and start the process… Continue reading
Have you ever created an absolutely beautiful Excel Workbook that needs to be shared? Well, it’s beautiful except for that one worksheet that contains all the data.
That one, not so pretty, but the data on it feeds all the others so it’s a necessity… but don’t you wish you could just hide it?
You know, like when you were a kid and had… Continue reading
We all know that we can get Excel to run a sort on columns of data; that is to sort the data in a column either ascending or descending. But, did you know that you can do the same thing to data that is in rows?
No?
Well, maybe that’s because it’s sort of “hidden” in the fine print of a Custom Sort.… Continue reading
Sometimes when working with Excel we end up with those dreaded errors – you know – the formulas that just aren’t working out.
They’re a pain, especially when we can’t seem to figure out what we did wrong, but they’re a part of our reality when it comes to Excel. And, while we have to deal with them in our worksheets, we can choose to… Continue reading
If you tend to use objects such as text boxes, shapes or pictures in you workbooks then you may have, from time to time, found yourself frustrated with the process of placing it in a location that you find appealing.
In fact, if you’re at all like me then you want everything to be “just so,” which means that placing an item could take quite a while… Continue reading
Here’s quick tip for my frustrated Excel users who find themselves constantly dragging the fill handle around for information duplication only to discover that they dropped it either too soon or too late.
I don’t know about you – but I hate that!
You either repeat your work by using the fill handle to fill in the space you didn’t fill when you dropped… Continue reading
Have you ever needed to use exponents in an MS Excel formula, but you didn’t know how?
I mean, maybe you need to square the value of a cell or something similar.
Either way, wouldn’t it be nice to know how to enter the power properly? You know, so you can avoid the whole multiplying the same number over and over in your formula… Continue reading
Have you ever found yourself working in MS Excel and needed to enter fractions? What did you do?
(Besides have flashbacks to middle school where you labored endlessly over those dreaded things!)
I know I’ve made them into formulas before. Basically, I divide the numerator by the denominator, add on the whole number and then convert the whole thing to a decimal in the… Continue reading
So, if you remember this tip then you’re up to speed on one way to liven things up when you’re working with charts in MS Excel… multi-colored bars are easy and definitely more interesting than the default.
If you’re like most people I’ve seen using Excel then you created the chart as quickly as possible meaning that you have rectangular bars… or, maybe if you… Continue reading
Ever try to paste information into Excel from some other application?
Did you get something that looks a bit strange? Maybe like this…
Looking to get rid of the garbage that came along with the information? (I just bet you are since the other options involve a lot of work along the lines of manually editing or entering all the… Continue reading
Have you ever found yourself playing the highlighting game in MS Excel? You know, you’re trying to highlight a certain area with your mouse, but instead, you find the file flying by, creating incredibly huge highlighted areas.
Now, many of you may know a lot of keyboard tricks for highlighting using the Shift key combined with the arrows, Page Up, Page Down, Home and End… Continue reading
When you work with MS Excel do you use the Ctrl + End feature – you know, the one that takes you to the very last column and row of your data?
Have you ever tried to use this one and found yourself way beyond the data?
I have and when I got there I found myself thinking that I hadn’t had data in… Continue reading
Do you frequently copy / paste information from documents, emails or the Internet into MS Excel?
If you don’t have your paste options set to match the destination formatting (and quite frankly don’t want it set that way) then you may be getting tired of all the formatting changes you have to complete to make the pasted information match the formatting of the existing data in the… Continue reading
Sounds unbelievable – how in the world will we preview the printed version of a worksheet while we edit?
We’re all very used to creating our worksheets then going to print preview. The process always seems to hold surprises. It doesn’t split from one page to the next in any way we had anticipated… the header is so large that it overlaps the worksheet content… the list… Continue reading
Or down. Or left. Or right.
Yep, that’s what you can do with a few quick keystrokes in MS Excel. That is, if you know the “magic” combination.
Okay, so it’s not exactly magic, but it still could be a pretty useful skill and worth a look.
If you’ve ever had a cell selected in MS Excel and wanted to quickly… Continue reading
