Copy Paste Visible Cells only (Two more ways to do it)
Last week, we talked about how to copy and paste visible cells alone (ie exclude any filtered rows or hidden columns etc.) In the comments section many of you suggested two more ways to deal with this annoying problem. Let’s take a look them.
Copy & paste visible cells only [Excel Trick]
Here is something annoying with Excel.
Open any Excel file with few columns of data. Hide some of those columns (select the columns and press CTRL+0). Now, copy a few rows of data. Paste it else where. Excel will paste the values in hidden columns too. We thought Excel would omit the values in hidden columns.
What the filter Excel?!? I thought we were friends, but you annoy me with some of these quirks.
Hide columns one one tab same way as they were in another place [quick tip]
One of the regular reporting tasks I do involves a manual step I hated. It goes like this:
- Dump several columns of data in the template file.
- Hide a particular set of columns (these are not together, so must be done one at a time or with CTRL+selection)
- Save and publish the file.
After doing this manually for last few fortnights, today I wanted to automate the column hide process. I was about to write a VBA macro to clone the hide settings from one workbook to another. But then I thought, may be paste special can be of use.
And what do you know. It does exactly that.
Format faster with paste special & double click [video]
Making your workbooks, charts, dashboards & presentations beautiful is a time consuming process. It is a mix of art & craft. Naturally, we spend hours polishing that important slideshow or visualization. But do you know about simple features in Excel that can save you a lot of time and help you create gorgeous output?
Use Paste Special to multiply (or add, divide etc.) a range with a variable [quick tip]
Here is a fun way to use Paste Special to quickly multiply everything in a range with 1.1 (why 1.1? Well, imagine you have a report with everything in US $s and your boss wants to see the numbers in Australian $s…)
Since your report has different formulas for each cell, you can’t multiply first cell with a rate variable and drag it down. You have to manually edit each formula and add *rate at the end of it.
Oh wait…, you can use Paste Special.
Quickly convert numbers stored as text [tip]
Here is a quick tip to start the week.
Often, we end up with a situation where a bunch of numbers are stored as text.
In such cases, Excel displays a warning indicator at the top-left corner of the cell. If you click on warning symbol next to the cell, Excel shows a menu offering choices to treat the error.
CP017: Top 10 non-Excel MS Office tips for you – Interview with Paul Woods – Office MVP & Blogger
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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In the 17th session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets leave Excel aside and talk about other MS Office apps.
Thats right. We will be learning 10 tips on how to use Word, Power Point, Outlook etc. Ready?
In this podcast, you will learn,
- About Paul
- Ten tips for MS Office
- 1. Use Excel to communicate instead of just calculations
- 2. Paste Special
- 3. Double click trick!
- 4. Inserting screenshots
- 5. Turning off notifications
- & more…