Explore a wide range of software applications, including their features, benefits, and best practices for maximising their potential in various business and personal contexts.
When you have worked hard to set up and create an Excel workbook, which may include 3D formulas, pivot tables and links to other key worksheets, you will want to protect your work from unwanted changes. Excel allows you to protect your worksheets work and allow editing It isn’t just about stopping people from making changes to […]
PDF makes a document read only. This can be useful when you want to share information with colleagues, but don’t want them to have access to formulas or make changes to your document. It is one of several ways you can use to protect your Excel documents. To save your current Excel worksheet as a […]
It is possible to use Excel for data entry and miss out some of the tools that can make analysing and summarising data easy-peasy. For me, this was Pivot tables. I avoided Pivot tables because a) I didn’t know what they were and b) I thought it would be too difficult to use as they […]
Outline View I didn’t use this at all in 2003, but in 2010, this view can help me to plan the structure of my document. The Outline View allows me to insert headings for each section, including sub-headings, and even paragraph headings. This acts as the map of my document. Outline View is a great tool […]
Learning to use more shortcuts in Word can be a bit playing Top Trumps. Person 1: “Control + Y , redo, time-saving value of 6.5” Person 2: “Control + Z, undo, time-saving value of 9″, I win, hand over the card!” Ok, so I don’t actually play top trumps with shortcuts (it’s generally Ben 10 […]
I have proofread and copy edited a lot of different documents. Everything from policy documents, to articles and committee papers. They all had different content and specialist language, but all of them needed thorough and systematic proofreading and it can take ages. It’s one of the reasons I drink so much coffee. My old method […]
If you often scroll through large Word documents to edit text, you could save yourself time by splitting the screen instead of scrolling backwards and forwards. This way, you can see two sections of your Word document on one screen – which can be useful, for example, if you are comparing your introduction to your […]
Here is a quick skill to add to your Word repertoire – a little touch of Basildon Bond to your paperwork. Watermarks aren’t just to look fancy, they do perform a useful function of reminding the reader that a document is in draft, or it is confidential. To add a watermark to your Word document, you […]
Either you love them or hate them, but Christmas newsletters can be great fun to create and a good way of sharing news with colleagues or family and friends. If you volunteer for a charity or help out with your local school, you may be asked to sort out the newsletter. You can save […]
Documents evolve over time and with the input of others. Tracking changes is a perfect for editing Word documents as you can see any sections that have been deleted, had format changes or include new content. With tracking tools you can control the changes by accepting or rejecting suggestions and approve the final version. To […]
In a previous job, I compiled meeting agendas and papers, which were subject to changes right up to the moment the meeting papers were sent out. This would mess up bullet point numbering in the agenda and in the meeting papers. With many people working on the same agenda, I could have saved a lot […]
For that professional edge it is really worth using Excel’s proofing tools to make sure that your worksheets are accurate. With more teams sharing Excel documents, adding comments and making changes, you need effective ways to track changes, check for duplicates and ensure that your business works with the most up to date and accurate […]
Part of the process of learning about Excel is overcoming the fear of new terminology, especially when it is linked to functions. Today’s term is SumIF. I use Autosum all the time, so why would I need to use SumIF? Well, Autosum adds up every cell that I select in a row or column. Great […]
In this example, I am looking at how to add a percentage increase to calculate a monthly projected fundraising target. Imagine my team is fundraising for a new community centre. In the last month they raised £76,000. I’d like to increase the total per month, but not put them off, so I want to add […]
One of the many things I like about Excel is that I can set up the formula in one cell and copy it to other cells. It’s also a favourite for our delegates attending our Microsoft Excel training courses. If I want to apply a percentage reduction to a figure, I can set it up […]
When I add financial data to my worksheets, I generally type in the content and format the cells afterwards – here are two ways to format cells with currency. I select my active cells, then I then click on all the cells, right click on format cells, and then go through the dialogue box to […]
If you’ve ever found yourself repeating the same tasks in Excel—copying and pasting data, formatting sheets, or generating reports—you’ve probably wondered if there’s a faster way. That’s where Excel VBA comes in. It’s a powerful tool that lets you automate routine tasks and streamline your workflow. Whether you’re already exploring data tools like Power BI […]
When I made the switch from Excel 2003 to Excel 2010, the Ribbon confused me and it still takes me a while to figure out which tab holds the functions I need. When I was on the intermediate Excel course the other week, I did notice that the trainer was talking about the buttons in […]
This may seem a back-to-basics question, but it a useful one, at any stage of Excel. This is something I’ve learned from attending our courses – it is always good to ask “What else can I do with Excel?”, “Can I automate that function?”, and “Can Excel do that?” Excel is a spreadsheet and a […]
I was on an Excel Intermediate course last week, and I noticed that when I was working with a chart, specific tools appeared. When I clicked out of my chart, the tools would disappear…What is going on Excel? Why are you doing that? How do I get them back? (Mild panic followed…”have I broken it?”) […]
It can be a pain when you have a list of names that are all in lower case, and you want to be able to change them to the right case. This can be easily completed using a formula to make the changes. To change this list of names to the proper case, I can […]
The previous post showed how to add a drop down list using a short list of terms. Entering a drop down list can be even quicker when applying yes/no choices to Excel. To set up the drop down list, I select the cells where I want the drop down lists to appear – in this […]
Anything that can cut down the time it takes to add data and improve accuracy is good in my book. Creating a drop down list isn’t as tough as I thought, so here is how to set up a drop down list using Data Validation. I have a set of customers, that come under four […]
I love shortcuts, they save me loads of time by using a couple of keystrokes instead of going to different tabs and menus. Here are my 10 favourite Excel shortcuts to speed up data entry in Excel. To undo the last action – use Control + Z no matter what program you are using, this shortcut […]
You can save yourself time scrolling across your Excel documents by wrapping text in column headings. It’s easy to do, takes a few seconds and improves the way you can move through and use your Excel worksheet. Here is a worksheet where better use of column format could help. I have used autofit to make […]
Worksheets that you don’t want other people to see or that you don’t want to delete but just don’t want to be visible, can be hidden. To hide a worksheet… Right click on the worksheet tab of the worksheet you want to hide Select Hide from the list Straight away the worksheet will disappear. Should […]
If you need to make a copy of a worksheet, rather than copying and pasting you could… Right click on the worksheet tab Select Move or Copy from the list and a dialogue box will appear. Select where you want the sheet to be positioned Click in the check box beside Create a copy Click […]
If you are printing a worksheet that will be more than one page, you may have a little difficulty understanding data on certain pages because the column and/or row headings are not visible. Should you wish to see the column / row headings on every printed out page… On the Page Layout ribbon, in the […]
To give your worksheet tabs different colours… Right click on the worksheet tab Select Tab colour from the list Click on the colour of your choice
If you are printing a worksheet that will be more than one page, you may have a little difficulty understanding data on certain pages because the column and/or row headings are not visible. Should you wish to see the column / row headings on every printed out page… On the Page Layout ribbon, in the […]
Sparklines are small charts that fit into a cell in your Excel workbooks. They act as a great visual summary of trends that use a small amount of space and allow you to make quick and effective comparisons in the blink of an eye. Features Sparklines will actively update as you add new data. Sparklines […]
Easily copy & paste using the Transpose option This is a very useful little tool (and one of many that we cover on our Advanced Microsoft Excel courses). Sometimes when setting up a worksheet you may realise that it would be better to put your column data into a row. One way to achieve this […]
Adding comments to an Excel spreadsheet helps when you are sharing a worksheet with colleagues. You can add extra information to a figure in a cell, use to note trends, or add an action note. The comments are hidden when you are working in your normal worksheet view, but you know a comment has been […]
One problem with sharing workbooks is accidental changes to formulas – a small change can negatively effect a whole document. How to hide a formula and stop unwanted changes Right click on the cell that contains the formula. Go to the Context menu and select Format Cells. From here, click on Protection, and choose the Hidden […]
It’s easy to fall into a habit, and manually type in a formula and copy and paste it within a worksheet. If so, you may not be getting the most out of the Formula tab on the Ribbon. From here, you can save yourself time by using Excel’s ready made formulas using Functions. The Formulas tab has […]
Dates are key pieces of information in Excel spreadsheets used for everything from planning, assessing progress and analysing results. Sometimes you may find that when you use dates in formulas, or as part of sorting or filtering data, the results don’t come out in the way you’d expect. This can be frustrating and slow down […]
I like to have easy access to web pages that link to the data I’m working on. I can copy and paste the web address into a column, which is fine, but takes up lots of space. A colleague showed me a good way to include my hyperlinks, where they are easily accessible within the […]
What is the difference between Autofilter and Sort in Excel? Why use one and not the other? I found out the difference when I was trying to sort through an enormous worksheet and a colleague asked me why I wasn’t using the Autofilter. I didn’t really want to admit that I didn’t know what it […]
There is more than one way to enter data into an Excel worksheet. Sometimes we stick to typing directly into cells, but there are different ways to enter data which can speed up your data entry work. Type directly into a cell and add your data. You know a cell is active as it is highlighted […]
Autofill is rapidly becoming a new trick for me today. I’ve used it to add weekdays, months of the year, and numbering columns. But there is more to it than that and Excel offers a range of Autofill options. To get the full list of options, you need to find the Auto Fill Options button. In […]
I was on an Excel intermediate course yesterday and here is a tip I learned that can make data entry faster in Excel. Autofill covers anything from dates, days of the week, to months of the year and more…Excel will automatically fill in the series. this can save so much time and reduce data entry errors. For […]
When you set up or amend a worksheet in Excel, it can speed up your work if you copy the formats you like. The Format Painter is there to help you do just that. It is located in the Home tab and you can use it to copy formats from one cell to another (or […]
One of the best tips for Excel that I’ve ever been given is “if you can automate it…set up a formula”. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to figure out calculations if you don’t understand the rules – Excel can do the number crunching, which means I can focus on adding the data and […]
Using different views in Excel can help speed up the quick analysis of data. Using Views is a great tool for viewing and organising large spreadsheets. Zoom in on current selection I use Excel for 90% of my work and using views is an effective way to zoom in and out on data. To access […]
You can learn how to get more out of your data with Excel 2010 training courses London. For example, Autosum offers you so much more than just, well, auto-summing. It belongs in the Formulas tab, but you’ll also find it tucked away on the Home tab. Tip: I use Autosum so much I like to […]
I can filter data in my Excel worksheet, using the number filters. This is another time-saving feature that helps me to get the data I need, quickly and easily. You can access the number filters, by selecting the down arrow next to the filter in the column you want to review. The filters offer you […]
An experiment using conditional formatting… I have a list of fictitious students who have taken an Excel exam this morning. The pass mark was 55, but I want to help the whole group to achieve a Grade B with a pass mark of over 70%. I want to be able to find who needs to […]
Here is a quick tip for customising your Excel worksheet. I like my Excel worksheets to have alternate shading or colours so that it is easier for me to read across rows. Now, I could set these up manually, by shading in my rows, but if I use sort, or add new rows, the shading […]
Sometimes the spell check function can work to your disadvantage. A typo may still make a recognisable word, (like form and from) and so mistakes can slip through the net. Usually spell check will do a red underline to highlight typos, but your spell checker setting may not be customised to your needs. For example, […]
You may have come across the situation where you have a list of names in Excel, with each name in a single cell and you want to separate out the first name and surname into separate cells. You can do this with the Text to Columns feature but this has limitations. Alternatively you can do […]