How to type same data in multiple cells

1. Select all of the cells that need to contain the same data. If the cells are consecutive you can click and drag to highlight them all, or you can hold down the CTRL button and click each individual cell.
2. With all of the cells still highlighted, type the data you need repeated in all the cells in the last cell you selected.
3. After you type the data press CTRL and the Enter button. Your data should now be in all of the cells you selected.

If you have multiple worksheets that need the same data in the same cells in each worksheet, you can automate this process even further by selecting each worksheet tab before you start selecting the cells in step #1 above. You can select multiple non-consecutive worksheet tabs by holding down CTRL and clicking on each tab, or if the tabs are consecutive you can click the first tab, hold down Shift, and then click the last tab. All tabs in between should also be highlighted. To deselect the tabs, click any other tab that is not the tab for the current  worksheet you are looking at.

The post Type Same Data In Multiple Cells appeared first on Excel Zoom.

Then you might like Silk. Silk is a data publishing platform that lets you convert a spreadsheet into a live interactive site. Silk takes each row on your spreadsheet and converts it into a standalone Web page (we call it a datacard). Then Silk allows you to build maps, charts, tables, and image galleries using the spreadsheet information stored in each datacard.

For example, here I’ve used Silk to turn a spreadsheet with headphone information into a site with interactive tables and graphs.

ExcelZoom.com was kind enough to allow us to explain Silk in this guest post and provide a quick user guide. I’ll show you how to prepare your spreadsheet for import into Silk, import options and then how to build visualizations.

Preparing your sheet for import into Silk

Silk will convert every row in your spreadsheet into a Webpage (datacard). You need to select one of the columns on your spreadsheet for the titles of your datacards. The information in the other columns will also show up on each datacard page in a table we call the factsheet. For import Silk requires a “flat” spreadsheet – no nested cells and no merged cells. You need to put a title in the first row of every column you are using – no blank rows. (See this tutorial on preparing your spreadsheet for Silk for more information.)

Importing your sheet into Silk

Now sign up for Silk. All that you need is an email and to pick a password. Next you’ll need to name your Silk. Then you can elect to take a quick tutorial or jump right into the import. To do the import:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EajJ7mvYJWo

• Find the ‘Add a new collection’ menu at the bottom of your screen.
• Click on the ‘Upload Spreadsheet’ box.
• Drag the Excel file you wish to upload into the drop box.
• Or use the ‘Paste spreadsheet’ option to copy and paste the columns from your spreadsheet into the importer box.

After you click ‘Import’, you will get a preview of how your datacards will appear in Silk.

1. Browse through the datacards by clicking the arrows.
2. Select which column you want to use as the title for each datacard.
3. Specify the “Collection” these datacards will go into. Collections hold together related datacards on a Silk. It’s best to change the collection name to something descriptive. We used ‘Headphones’ in this example.
4. Start the import.

If the preview looks good, click the blue “Import” button to convert your spreadsheet into a Silk site.

• When your import is completed, Silk will automatically analyze your data and place you into the “Explore” tab (this is where you can build visualization and explore the data). Silk will suggest a visualization.
• You can accept the visualization suggestion or pick a different one from the visualization ribbon. Silk offers 14 different types including maps, charts, tables, lists and galleries.
• You can change the contents of your visualizations by adding or removing tags (tag = column) or adding inline filters. (Further editing options can be found by clicking the ‘More Options’ button.)
• To publish the visualization to your Silk’s home page, click the green ‘Publish this visualization’ button.
• To further edit your homepage, click click the ‘+’ anywhere on the page. Then you can choose from the menu to add more visualizations as well as blocks of text, images, YouTube videos and other media.
• Or you can click the ‘Explore’ tab again create more visualizations from inside Explore.

For more detailed information, see our spreadsheet tutorial, we now created our Silk. The spreadsheet in this example was filled with information about headphones, and was used to create headphones.silk.co. You can now share the Silk so anyone can compare and visualize the data. You can let the Silk stay public, but you can also make it private if you wish. Better yet, you can allow anyone to edit the Silk, turning your Silk into a community project.

That’s it! If you like to learn more about Silk, you can participate in our webinar series, which will start on July 22nd, 12-1 pm EDT / 9-10am PDT. If you want examples of cool Silks, check out our home page, and don’t hesitate to send us an email if you have any questions. Attach your spreadsheet if you’re having trouble. We’d love to help anyone create a nice Silk. Thanks for reading!

The post Use Silk to convert your Excel Files into an interactive online database with visualizations appeared first on Excel Zoom.

Before we continue, you should check to see that Solver is installed on your version of Excel.

Navigate to the add-ins menu, and make sure that Solver Add-in has a check in the box next to it.

You should then be able to find Solver in the Data tab.

If you’re able to see Solver in the Data tab like in the screenshot above, you should be all set to use Solver in Excel.

To understand how to use Solver in Excel, you should know the group of cells that the add-in works with:

• Decision Variable Cells: The values in the variable cells are adjusted by Solver when solving a problem.
• Constraint Cell: Provides Solver with the restrictions, or limits on the values that it has to work with in order to produce a result.
• Objective Cell: Solver provides the optimal value depending on the criteria provided in the Objective Cell. This cell must contain a formula.

Before you start to use Solver, you will want to have a spreadsheet set up with a problem that you want to solve. For demonstration purposes we will work with a spreadsheet that is trying to determine how many of four different types of “Widgets” to manufacture in order to maximize profits.

We will assume that each Widget produces the following profits:

• Widget A: $25
• Widget B: $35
• Widget C: $45
• Widget D: $55

Assuming there were no constraints, and we could manufacture and sell Widget D just as easily as the other Widgets, we should drop Widgets A-C and just focus on Widget D.

However in real life there are constraints such as time to produce, availability of materials, etc.

Let’s also assume the following constraints for each Widget:

• Widget A Requires:
  • Part A: 4
  • Part B: 6
  • Time (hours): 0.25 (15 minutes)
• Widget B Requires:
  • Part A: 6
  • Part B: 5
  • Time (hours): 0.25 (15 minutes)
• Widget C Requires:
  • Part A: 4
  • Part B: 8
  • Time (hours): 0.5 (30 minutes)
• Widget D Requires:
  • Part A: 6
  • Part B: 10
  • Time (hours): 0.5 (30 minutes)

We also have a maximum of 17,000 Part A, 50,000 Part B, and 2,000 hours of labor.

What we are looking to do is solve the following equation, where Y_A is the quantity of Widget A, Y_B is the quantity of Widget B, and so on.

Maximize: 25 Y_A + 35 Y_B + 45 Y_C + 55 Y_D

Subject to these constraints:

Part A: 4 Y_A + 6 Y_B + 4 Y_C + 6 Y_D <= 17,000
Part B: 6 Y_A + 5 Y_B + 8 Y_C + 10 Y_D <= 50,000
Time: 0.25 Y_A + 0.25 Y_B + 0.5 Y_C + 0.5 Y_D <= 2,000

Additionally, another constraint is you can’t build a negative number of any of the Widgets, so:

Y_A + Y_B + Y_C + Y_D >= 0

Set-up Your Spreadsheet With Data

We can then build a spreadsheet with this information:

In the spreadsheet all the numbers, other than the numbers in column G, were manually entered. There are four cells with formulas:

• G5: =SUMPRODUCT(C3:F3,C4:F4) – Note this is the same as saying =C3*C4+D3*D4+E3*E4+F3*F4.
• G8: =SUMPRODUCT(C8:F8:$C$4:$F$4) – In this formula, we add the $ signs to keep the reference to cells C4:F4 static when we eventually copy the formula to other cells.
• G9-G10: Copy the formula from G8 down to G9 and G10. Since we used the $ signs in the formula in G8, the formula in G9 and G10 will retain the references to cells C4:F4 (because this part had the $ signs), but will update itself to reference C9:F9, and C10:F10 (since this part did not have $ signs).

Use Solver to Maximize Profits:

Now, to find out the maximum profit, we are going to let Solver run through the scenario and provide us with an answer. First we need to tell Solver what we are trying to do.

• On the Data tab, click on Solver.
• Click in the Set Objective field and type $G$5, or click on cell G5. This tells Solver which cell we want to optimize.
• The To option should be set to Max. This tells Solver that we want to maximize the value in cell G5.
• In the By Changing Variable Cells box, type $C$4:$F$4, or highlight the range C4:F4 with your mouse. This tells Solver which cells should change in order to maximize the value in cell G5.
• Next to the Subject to Constraints box click the Add button. Here we will provide the constraints that we described in the math formula above.
  • We want the resources to be limited by the quantities we have available, so in the Cell Reference box (left side), enter $G$8:$G$10, or select the range G8:G10 with your mouse.
  • The dropdown box (middle) should be set to <=.
  • The Constraint box (right side) should be set to the maximum quantities available, which in our case is $H$8:$H$10.
  • Click OK.
• If we had additional constraints to enter, we could do so by clicking the Add button. In this case we want to make sure the Units to produce are not negative, we could enter a new constraint of $C$4:$F$4 >= 0.
• Since all of our variables are constrained, it won’t change the outcome if you check or uncheck the box for Make Unconstrained Variables Non-Negative.
• Click Solve.

Solver will run through the problem and provide the optimal number of each Widget type to produce in order to maximize profits. You should see a message saying that “Solver found a solution”.

In this scenario, in order to maximize profits we need to produce 3,500 of Widget C, 500 of Widget D, and none of Widgets A or B.

Find Ways to Further Maximize Profits:

If we want to generate an Answer report, click on Answer under the Reports section in the Solver Results window. Solver will create an Answer Report tab to the left of the tab you are working on.

The Answer Report will show you the original and final values of the objective and variable cells. It will also list out the resources that prevented Solver from further maximizing our profits.

In this case, Part A and Time were both fully used up. In the report their status is “Binding”, with a slack of 0. Part B was the only resource that was not binding, as there were 17,000 units left over.

In the real world we could use this information to try to determine if we could possibly acquire more of Part A, and hire more employees to further maximize the profits.

If this wasn’t a possibility, we could see if there was something else we could make with the 17,000 remaining units of Part B.

Other Ways to Use Solver in Excel:

We just ran through a simple scenario to maximize the profit of a widget manufacturer. However the usage of Solver is not limited to producing widgets.

You can use Solver in Excel to help allocate money to certain investments, purchasing real-estate, or scheduling staff at a multi-location business.

Do you use Solver in Excel? Let’s hear about how you use it in the comments.

The post How to Use Solver in Excel appeared first on Excel Zoom.

Click through to see our top 10 Excel tips.

The post 10 Excel Tips For Increased Productivity appeared first on Excel Zoom.

Before we learn how to recover a protected excel sheet password, let’s figure out why people password protect worksheets to begin with.  By protecting a worksheet and the contents of locked cells, users can keep themselves or other users from:

• Accidentally (or intentionally) removing formulas, or other contents of locked cells
• Adding or deleting rows and columns
• Changing cell, column or row formats
• Sorting data
• Using AutoFilter or PivotTable reports
• Editing objects or scenarios

Protecting a worksheet will not keep users from

• Editing any unlocked cells in the worksheet
• Viewing all data in the worksheet, regardless of if it is in a locked cell or not
• Hacking excel passwords / Cracking excel passwords. Excel is not ‘secure’.

Being able to unlock a password protected worksheet is useful, when

• You have forgotten the password on your own worksheet (forgotten excel passwords)
• A co-worker, or other user has password protected a worksheet that you now need to edit, and they are not available to unlock the sheet for you
• You have a need to perform an analysis of the data in a password protected worksheet, but are unable to do so due to the locked cells
• You would like to sort/filter the data in a password protected worksheet, or create a PivotTable report from the data
• Need to recover an excel password

Since Microsoft Excel is not a “secure” program, it is very easy to unlock the password of a password protected worksheet.  This is because there are several different combinations of passwords that Excel will accept to unlock the worksheet.  For example, a worksheet with the password “treehouse”, can also be unlocked with the password “AAAABAABBBB/”.  The opposite is also true (i.e. protecting with the password “AAAABAABBBB/” can be unlocked with the password “treehouse”).  Go ahead; try locking a worksheet with the password treehouse, and use AAAABAABBBB/ to unlock it.

The macro code below will “unlock” one worksheet at a time, using the method used above.  It won’t provide you with the actual password someone typed in, but rather a random sequence of letters or symbols that will work to unlock the worksheet. It should not be used as an excel password hack or for breaking an excel password.

Recover excel password

Step 1 – Open the worksheet in Excel where you have forgotten your excel password. This is so we can try to recover protected excel sheet password with VBA.

Step 2 – Open the VBA Editor (ALT + F11) – see our guide How to open Excel VBA Editor if you are unfamiliar with how to do this.

Step 3 – Insert a new module and use the VBA code below to find your forgot excel password.


Sub PasswordRecovery()
'
'MACROS BY EXCELZOOM.COM
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
Dim l As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer
Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As Integer
Dim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Integer
On Error Resume Next
For i = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65 To 66
For l = 65 To 66: For m = 65 To 66: For i1 = 65 To 66
For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 = 65 To 66
For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For n = 32 To 126
ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(i) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & _
Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & _
Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
MsgBox "One usable password is " & Chr(i) & Chr(j) & _
Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _
Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
Exit Sub
End If
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
End Sub


Step 4 – Run the VBA code (F5) to recover excel password. You will receive a pop-up like the below to recover the excel sheet password.

It is worth noting that Microsoft is quite clear on its stance that you need to remember or make a note of passwords when protecting a workbook or worksheet and will not offer help in order to recover a lost excel password. See the MS protect a workbook page. So Microsoft cannot help if you have forgotten your excel password or need help recovering a password to open a workbook or worksheet (and probably rightly so!). We notice there is plenty of software available online to help unlock a password protected worksheet in Excel (for all versions of excel) however we like the VBA code noted above as a first option and haven’t tried and tested all third party applications enough to feel comfortable recommending on here.

* Update – Since this code is widely available online I have unrestricted it from our members area to make it available to all. I hope this helps as we all know how frustrating it can be when you are unable to access a worksheet that you need due to a password protected excel forgot password issue at work or at home. This should not be used to crack an excel protected sheet or break into worksheet you should not have access to. It is however, one useful method to unlock an excel password protected excel sheet.

Happy Excelling!  And remember, try not to forget that excel worksheet password in the first place if possible! :-)

The post How to Recover Lost Excel Passwords appeared first on Excel Zoom.

First, some background on what it does.  Goal Seek is essentially the answer to every middle school aged kid’s math test word problem.  It is best used when you know the answer to the problem you’re trying to solve, but don’t know all the inputs.

For example, a simple word problem might be “You have 432 sheets of paper to give out to a class of 36 students.  How many sheets of paper does each student get.”  Well you know that 36 multiplied by something will give you 432, but you don’t know what that number is.  You could divide 432 by 36 to get the answer, but let’s assume that isn’t possible right now.  With Goal Seek, you need several things:

• An answer expressed as a formula, in this case 432 is equal to 36 times something.  Don’t worry, the result of the formula doesn’t have to equal 432 yet.  That’s the magic of Goal Seek.
• You need one part of the equation, in this case 36.

To start, type the following into your spreadsheet in the cells indicated.

Next, open Goal Seek (Tools | Goal Seek, or Data tab on the Excel 2007 ribbon | What If Analysis | Goal Seek).

You are now going to be asked for three things. 

1. Set Cell: this is the reference to the cell that contains your formula, in which you want Excel to produce your answer of 432.  In our example it should be A3.  Note: the Set Cell MUST contain a formula or function.
2. To Value: this is the value you want in your Set Cell (A3).  The value here should be 432.
3. By Changing Cell: Since we know that the formula in cell A3 is correct, and the value of 36 in cell A1 is correct, we want Excel to produce the answer of 432 by changing cell A2.  Type A2 in this box.  Note: the Changing Cell MUST contain a value.
4. Click OK.

After clicking OK, Excel will attempt to find a solution to the equation.  Once it does, it will enter the missing number in cell A2 and your formula should now equal 432.

Obviously this is a basic example, and doesn’t use Goal Seek’s capabilities to their fullest extent.  Let’s take another example that looks at a company’s sales by product to get their desired level of revenue.

XYZ Company makes four different products, Product A, Product B, Product C, and Product D.  The company can produce 1,000, 750, 500, and 100 of each product respectively.  The products also sell for $15, $20, $35, and $50 respectively.  Their maximum revenue for products produced that month, therefore is as follows:

Now say the company feels that their underdog, Product D, could be producing much more.  They also want their revenues to be 60,000.  How many more of Product D will they need to produce?

To figure this out, run Goal Seek just like before, except this time, the “Set Cell” is cell D6, “To Value” is 60,000, and the “By Changing Cell” is cell B5.  After clicking OK, you’ll notice that Excel has changed the value in cell B5 to 250, indicating that you will need to increase production of Product D to 250 units from 100 in order to have revenues of $60,000, assuming everything else remains the same.

The post Goal Seek to Solve A Problem appeared first on Excel Zoom.

The macro code below will copy the worksheet named “Original”, and place it after the last worksheet in your file. It will then prompt you to enter in the date that corresponds with that week. It will continue to do so until you enter a valid worksheet name (i.e. valid format and a name that isn’t already used somewhere else in the workbook. Make sure your workbook already has a file called “Original”, and it is formatted the way you want all your weekly reports to be formatted. (Note if your “Original” worksheet isn’t called “Original”, you can change the name in the macro code below to whatever you want).

Copy all the code below. Paste it into your workbook’s Visual Basic editor, either under a Microsoft Excel Object or Module.

Need help? Use our nifty guide to help figure out how to install and use your macros.

The post Create and Name a New Worksheet appeared first on Excel Zoom.

The only drawback to this macro is that the file must be open in order for it to run. You can have this automated for you by using the Windows Scheduler found in the Control Panel to open the file at a certain time, and have the code below run automatically when opened.

Copy all the code below. Paste it into your workbook’s Visual Basic editor, in a Module. Replace “my_macro” with whatever name you have given your macro.

Need help? Use our nifty guide to help figure out how to install and use your macros.

The code below will allow you to run a macro called “my_macro” 30 seconds from now. You can change the time to whatever time interval you would like.

Use the following if you wish to run the macro at a certain time of day. The code below will automatically run my_macro at 5pm (written in 24 hour time as 17:00:00).

The post Run Macro At a Specified Time appeared first on Excel Zoom.

Excel Run Macro on Open

To automatically run a macro when you open excel, follow these simple steps;

• Open the VBA editor and create a sub called Auto_Open()
• Enter the VBA code you wish to be executed when your workbook is opened
• Close the Sub (End Sub) and save. Remember to save as a macro enable workbook

This is how you easily make a macro run automatically in Excel when a workbook is opened.


Sub Auto_Open()
'
'MACROS BY EXCELZOOM.COM
'
Msgbox "Hello"
End Sub


Replace “Msgbox “Hello” ” with whatever macro commands you wish to have run whenever your file is opened.

Need help? Use our nifty guide to help figure out how to install and use your macros.

Use the following if you wish to put the macro in your workbook as opposed to in a module. Again replace “Msgbox “Hello”” with your macro command:

Private Sub Workbook_Open()
'
'MACROS BY EXCELZOOM.COM
'
Msgbox "Hello"
End Sub


We hope this will help you in Excel to auto run macros and implement the functionality to run a macro when workbook opens.

Stop a macro automatically running when Opening Excel

Of course, now you know how to create a macro that runs automatically when you open Excel, it is useful to know how to prevent it.

The quickest way way prevent a macro running automatically when you open Excel is to disable macros in the Excel security settings. This will then not run the macro automatically but instead ask you for permission. You can change the settings in a different spreadsheet so you get the desired result when you open the workbook in question.

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