How to trace precedents in Excel formulas? [tip+music from Prague]
Here is a very useful and almost secret Excel tip for you. Imagine you are looking at a big, complex workbook with lots of calculations. You want to understand where everything is pointing to and how the workbook is set up.
You can use trace precedents in Excel to do this. Read this tip to learn how it works.
CP021: How to quickly compare 2 lists in Excel
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In the 21st session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets compare lists. Quickly
What is in this session?
Comparing things is a favorite pastime for analysts all over the world. Sadly, it is also an area where we waste hours. So in this episode, I share my top secret comparison techniques to save you time.
Note: This is a short format podcast. That means you spend less time listening to it, while becoming more awesome.
In this podcast, you will learn,
- Why I sound like I am on a secret mission at a mafia hideout.
- 5 ways to compare 2 lists
- Manual method
- Conditional Formatting
- Row Differences
- LOOKUP formulas
- COUNTIF formulas
- Bonus tip: Removing duplicates
- Conclusions
CP015: Handling big data, Controlling model railroad sets, Overcoming Excel obsession & more – ASK CHANDOO
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In the 15th session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets answer some of your burning Excel questions.
What is in this session?
Around last week, I invited you to ask me anything. More than 150 people responded to this call and sent in their questions. Since answering all the questions is not possible, I handpicked roughly 10 questions to answer in this episode of Chandoo.org podcast.
In this podcast, you will learn,
- How to fill blank cells with data from above
- How to work with Big data in Excel
- How to combine data from multiple sources & analyze it in Excel
- How I am managing my life after starting Chandoo.org
- How to create and distribute stand-alone Excel products
- How to control a model railroad set using Excel VBA (not fully answered)
- & more…
Find first non-blank item in a list with formulas
Blank cells are an invisible pain in the analysis. Dealing with them is frustrating, time consuming and often very complex. At chandoo.org, we are not big fans of blank cells. That is why we wrote:
- How to delete blank cells & rows?
- Dealing with blanks – case study
- Quickly filling blank cells in a table
- Extracting non-blank data from a list
Today, lets talk about one more scenario. Lets say you want to find out the first non-blank item in a list. How would you do it?
Sporadic Totals in Excel [video]
If this Excel problem is a Bollywood (Indian movie) plot, it would go like this:
Situation: Your boss gave you a worksheet. It has a lot of number chunks. And you need to calculate the sum of each chunk. Quickly!
Twist #1: The villain (your boss, who else) has abducted your spouse. For every extra hour you spend on the problem, your boss will make your spouse go thru one of the boring 97 slide strategy presentations. And his laptop is full of those strategy presentations.
Twist #2: The F1 key on your keyboard is missing.
Twist #3: The coffee machine in your floor is broken again.
Twist #4: And just when you are pressing CTRL+S, the movie steers in to an item song.
—-
Fortunately, no one abducted your spouse. And hopefully the coffee machine is working. But the Excel problem remains unsolved.
What is so special about Go To Special? [15 tips]
We briefly covered Excel’s Go To Special function in the Managing Spreadsheet Risk series and in this post, we are going to explore Go to special feature in detail and learn how to use it.
What is Go To Special?
Go To Special is a tool within Microsoft Excel that enables you to quickly select cells of a specified type within your Excel worksheet. Once you get to grips with this function and what it can be used for you will wonder how you ever lived without it. Read on…,
Excel’s Auditing Functions [Spreadsheet Risk Management – Part 3 of 4]
This series of articles will give you an overview of how to manage spreadsheet risk. These articles are written by Myles Arnott from Excel Audit Part 1: An Introduction to managing spreadsheet risk Part 2: How companies can manage their spreadsheet risk Part 3: Excel’s auditing functions Part 4: Using external software packages to manage […]