Often, we need to input special symbols like €£¥©½» in to our Excel sheets. Now, how do we do that?
Simple, you can use Insert > Symbol to add several different kinds of symbols.
See this animation to understand how you can add symbols to an excel cell. (the file is kind of big, so give it a few seconds to load)
5 Bonus tips on using Symbols:
- You can just double click on the character to insert it. No need to press Insert button.
- You can quickly open insert symbol dialog by pressing ALT+I and then S. (related: 97 keyboard shortcuts to boost your excel mojo)
- You can use the symbols in formulas too. For eg. you can show ? or ? or ? based on change of one value wrt to another. Like this:
- =if(A1>A2, “↑”, if(A1<A2,”↓”,”↔”)) (related: in-cell charts)
- Quickly access symbols to specific to currency, arrows or greek chars (if you are in to that sort of thing) by using the drop-down at top-right (see above demo).
- Change the font to Wingdings / Webdings to see some useful and fun characters. You can spice dashboards or reports with these.
2 Responses to “Celebrating the Lookup Formulas – VLOOKUP Week @ Chandoo.org”
How did you arrive or formula when you ask me who made more sales Jackie or Jamie?? I could not figure the formula out yet??
@Frank
You need to sum up the sales for Jackie and compare them to the sales of Jamie over the same period.
The practical parts depends on how and what data you have and how it is arranged.
But it will either involve a Sum, Sumif, Sumifs or Sumproduct to accummulate the sales for each within a specified date range.