The worldwide web is a wonderful place. I am constantly amazed by the simple yet very effective stuff we can learn by just reading. Today I want to share with you two very great pieces of advice:
- Seth Godin’s 4 Simple Principles for making effective graphs:
Seth Godin is probably one of the most remarkable, successful storytellers out there. And when he tells you how to make effective graphs, you can pretty much trust him. He says (1) Don’t let popular spreadsheets be in charge of the way you look, (2) Tell a story (3) Follow some simple rules (4) Break some other rules. We at PHD totally agree and spread these very principles everyday. He also says,Don’t use 3-D charts unless you have a license. You can animate, but only if you have a note from your doctor.
Priceless Advice… 🙂
- Juice Analytics’ Think Like a Designer when you are making dashboards
Juice is one of my favorite blogs. In this very concise yet important article they list down 7 dashboard design principles: (1) Unity/Harmony (2) Proximity / Hierarchy (3) Clear Space (4) Balance (5) Contrast (6) Proportion (7) Simplicity
Do you notice something interesting? Both links resonate same ideas, same principles and hold same values that can make you a great presenter / storyteller / individual.
Additional material for reading: 14 basic skills for chart makers, Make dashboards using excel
Have a good weekend everyone 🙂
11 Responses to “Fix Incorrect Percentages with this Paste-Special Trick”
I've just taught yesterday to a colleague of mine how to convert amounts in local currency into another by pasting special the ROE.
great thing to know !!!
Chandoo - this is such a great trick and helps save time. If you don't use this shortcut, you have to take can create a formula where =(ref cell /100), copy that all the way down, covert it to a percentage and then copy/paste values to the original column. This does it all much faster. Nice job!
I was just asking peers yesterday if anyone know if an easy way to do this, I've been editing each cell and adding a % manually vs setting the cell to Percentage for months and just finally reached my wits end. What perfect timing! Thanks, great tip!
If it's just appearance you care about, another alternative is to use this custom number format:
0"%"
By adding the percent sign in quotes, it gets treated as text and won't do what you warned about here: "You can not just format the cells to % format either, excel shows 23 as 2300% then."
Dear Jon S. You are the reason I love the internet. 3 year old comments making my life easier.
Thank you.
Here is a quicker protocol.
Enter 10000% into the extra cell, copy this cell, select the range you need to convert to percentages, and use paste special > divide. Since the Paste > All option is selected, it not only divides by 10000% (i.e. 100), it also applies the % format to the cells being pasted on.
@Martin: That is another very good use of Divide / Multiply operations.
@Tony, @Jody: Thank you 🙂
@Jon S: Good one...
@Jon... now why didnt I think of that.. Excellent
Thank You so much. it is really helped me.
Big help...Thanks
Thanks. That really saved me a lot of time!
Is Show Formulas is turned on in the Formula Ribbon, it will stay in decimal form until that is turned off. Drove me batty for an hour until I just figured it out.