Brick Charts in Excel – an Alternative to Gridlines
Grid lines provide great help in understanding values in a chart. Here is a handy trick you can use in the next bar chart to spice it up. Here is how you can get this type of chart (we will call it a brick chart) First we will make a regular bar chart Now, let […]
What is camera tool and how to use it? [spreadcheats]
Camera tool is your way of creating visual reference in an excel sheet. It is one of the useful and hidden features of excel. Here is how it works. You specify a rectangular area in your workbook and camera tool creates a mirror image of that area as a drawing object. You can move it or resize it. And whenever the contents of original rectangular area changes (charts, drawings or cell values) the mirror image changes too.
Advanced Data Validation Techniques in Excel [spreadcheats]
Data validation is a great way to keep your users informed about possible values in a cell and guide them to select something appropriate. As part of the spreadcheats series, in this post we will discuss 2 advanced data validation techniques that can help you when you are modeling a complex worksheet.
Generating Random Phone Numbers
Often when you are writing code or testing an application, it might be helpful to have random phone numbers generated for you. Here is an excel formula that I use: =value(left(substitute(rand(),”0.”,””),10)) try these 2 instead (thanks to John) =RAND()*(9999999999-1000000000)+1000000000 =RANDBETWEEN(1000000000,9999999999) [needs analysis toolpack add-in or excel 2007] Even though it works most of the time […]
Make your VBA macros work anywhere: Enable Relative References
Do you know that while recording macros in excel you can use the relative reference based recording so that you can use your macro anywhere and the references would be adjusted automatically? Yes! I have learned this yesterday and I thought it is pretty cool. Here is how you can make your macro VBA code […]
Seperating digits from a number [excel formulas]
Reader Joann asks through email: Take the number 117490. I need to break it down5 times: 11749 1174 117 11 1 You can use FLOOR() function to get the desired result, like this: =FLOOR(your-number/10^digit-no,1) See the image below:
How to present changes in Market Share using Charts?
Most of us are comfortable with numbers, but we are confused when it comes to convert the numbers to charts. We struggle finding the right size, color and type of charts for our numbers. The challenge is two fold, we want to make the charts look good (we mean, really… really good) but at the […]