All articles with 'using excel' Tag

Analyst’s life is busy. We have to gather data, clean it up, analyze it, dig the stories buried in it, present them, convince our bosses about the truth, gather more evidence, run tests, simulations or scenarios, share more insights, grab a cup of coffee and start all over again with a different problem.

So today let me share with you 35 shortcuts, productivity hacks and tricks to help you be even more awesome.

We can take any Excel workbook and format it until Christmas, and we would still not be done. But not many of us have so much of time or energy. So, today, lets talk formatting.

In this, you will learn how to
1) Use tables to format data quickly
2) Change colors of your worksheet in a snap
3) Use cell styles
4) Quickly clone formatting using format painter
5) Clear formats to begin with a clean-slate
6) Formatting shortcuts
7) Formatting options for print
and 8 ) Why you should not go overboard formatting and 10 other tips.

So go ahead and become a formatting pro.

Ever wanted to show your workbook to someone and felt that you had less screen real estate? This tip will help you get more out of your workbook.

So how to get 50% more space for your workbooks?

Simple, just follow these steps.

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This is going to be epic!!! In the 50th session of Chandoo.org podcast, we have 50 Excel tips to make you awesome.

What is in this session?

In this podcast,

• Thank you message
• Fifty tips in 5 buckets
  • Shortcuts & Productivity
  • Formulas
  • Managing Data
  • Charts
  • Using Excel better

By now, we know how to remove duplicates from data. You can use the Remove Duplicates button to do that.

But do you know that we can use remove duplicates button to get rid off duplicate combinations too?

Remove duplicate combinations – Tutorial

To remove duplicate combinations in your data, just follow below 4 steps:

1. Select your data
2. Click on Data > Remove Duplicates button
3. Make sure all columns are checked
4. Click ok and done!

See this demo:

Analyst’s life is busy. We have to gather data, clean it up, analyze it, dig the stories buried in it, present them, convince our bosses about the truth, gather more evidence, run tests, simulations or scenarios, share more insights, grab a cup of coffee and start all over again with a different problem.

So today let me share with you 25 shortcuts, productivity hacks and tricks to help you be even more awesome.

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.

I am in Sydney and yesterday we had a meetup of Sydney Excel users. Around 15 people turned up for the event and we talked about various Excel related topics over few drinks. One of the questions that came up was,

I learn and use Excel in better ways. But my boss doesn’t how to open the workbook and use simple stuff like filters, slicers, sorting and selecting. So I end up sending screenshots or PDFs instead of powerful Excel files. What to do?

Although we discussed various possible solutions to the problem, I thought it would be a good topic for us discuss here.

So how would you train your boss to use Excel?

Please share your thoughts, experiments, experiences and suggestions in the comments. Let’s make our bosses awesome.

Here is a fairly annoying problem.

Imagine a chart showing both sales & customer data. Sales numbers are large and customer numbers are small. So when you make a chart with both of these, selecting the smaller series (customers) becomes very difficult.

In such cases, you can use arrow keys – as shown above.

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In the 33rd session of Chandoo.org podcast, let’s turn the mic to our listeners and hear their tips. What is in this session? This session has 2 things. A surprise Easter egg (an Excel tip hidden in the podcast audio) Collection of Excel tips recorded & submitted by Chandoo.org readers Listen to this session Click here […]

We all know that using named ranges is a good practice. So you went ahead and created names for every value in your complex workbook. But now, what about those formulas which still refer to cells by their addresses? Here is a quick tip to make your formulas readable by replacing cell addresses with the names in one go.

Use Apply Names feature.

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In the 31st session of Chandoo.org podcast, let’s disappear.

What is in this session?

Spreadsheets are complex things. They have outputs, calculation tabs, inputs, VBA code, from controls, charts, pivot tables and occasional picture of hello kitty. But when it comes to making a workbook production ready, you may want to hide away few things so it looks tidy.

That is our topic for this podcast session.

In this podcast, you will learn

• Quick announcements first anniversary of our podcast etc.
• Hiding cells, rows, columns & sheets
• Hiding chart data points
• On/off effect with form controls, conditional formatting
• Making objects, charts, pictures disappear
• Disabling grid-lines, formula bar & headings
• Hiding things in print

Here is a very simple & fun way to replace formulas with values.

(Earlier, we talked about how to do this with keyboard)

Just wiggle.

Wiggle what?

One of the most useful features of Excel is formula help box. You know the little yellow box that appears as soon as you start typing a formula in a cell. I use this all the time to understand what the syntax of a particular function is, what parameters to pass etc.

Although I love it, sometimes it does get in the way when writing formulas. Because the help box sits on top of my data, often I find it hard to know which cell to link to.

Solution?!?

Simple. Use your mouse to move away the help box wherever you want.

If you work with multiple Excel workbooks everyday, then here is a handy tip.

Use Save workspace feature to save your workbook collection & layout.