Using the fill handle is easy. Simply start typing a list of consecutive numbers, dates, etc. and drag the rest. You can easily fill 100 cells in no time at all. Well what if you wanted to fill the alphabet down a list of cells? Unfortunately, Excel doesn't have this functionality built in. If you were to start typing the alphabet down column A, so that A1=A, A2=B, A3=C, and … [Read more...]
Watch Window
In large worksheets, it is especially useful to be able to view a cell that contains summary data, such as totals. This can become tedious if your totals are at the end of your worksheet, while the data you're editing is at the beginning, causing you to have to scroll down to be able to see the totals. If you use Excel's Watch Window, you can keep your worksheet's summary … [Read more...]
Using PivotTables
Note: To work along with this tip, you can download the PivotTable Example file. The download file does not contain the PivotTables referred to below, it simply contains the source data so you can follow the steps to create the same PivotTables. PivotTables are a useful way to quickly summarize data and display it in an easy to read format. Their biggest problem is that not … [Read more...]
Using Text to Columns
If you have a list of data in a column, formatted in a similar manner throughout that you wish to separate into several columns, you can use Excel's Text to Columns feature to separate this information. For example, say your list is in column A and it contains a list of customer email addresses. You want to retrieve just the part before the "@", because that is also their ID … [Read more...]
Formula to Link Between Excel Files
Often times, you'll do work in one Excel file, that would be useful to show in another Excel file. You can simply copy and paste the data in, but if the data is dynamic (i.e. changes often), you might want to link between the two files. You can link to a cell in another file just as easily as you can link to a cell in the same workbook, the only difference is that you need … [Read more...]