Replace formulas with values using this shortcut [quick tip]
Often in my work, I need to replace a bunch of formulas with values. Blame it on old habits, but this is what I used to do:
- Copy the cells with formulas (CTRL+C)
- Press ALT+ESV and then enter.
While this is ok, it does take quite a bit of time and key strokes.
Here is a shorter way I recently learned…
Closing gaps in this Gender Equality Gap chart…
Today lets close some gaps.
Recently I saw this interesting chart on Economist Daily Charts page. This chart is based on World Economic Forum’s survey on how women compare to men in terms of various development parameters. First take a look at the chart prepared by Economist team.
So what are the gaps in this chart?
This chart fails to communicate because,
- All country charts look same, thus making it difficult to spot any deviations.
- We cannot quickly compare one country with another on any particular indicator.
- It does not provide a better context (for eg. how did these countries perform last year?)
But criticizing someone’s work is not awesome. Fixing it and making an even better chart, that has awesome written all over it. So that is what we are going to do. You can see the improved chart above. Click on it to learn how you can create it.
What areas of Excel scare you most? [survey]
Yesterday was Halloween. To our readers who are not familiar with it, ‘Halloween is a colorful festival with lots of costumes, scary stories, theme parties and trick-or-treating, celebrated on 31st October, every year.” I have never celebrated Halloween as it is an unknown tradition in India where I live. But that is no excuse. Especially when the celebration calls for colorful clothes, scary themed houses and shrieking kids.
Of course, we are not going to have a traditional Halloween. Because,
- At our house, we use pumpkins to make sambar, not lights
- The only ones with costumes in our house are my kids.
- If I send my kids for trick or treat, they will get neither.
So that brings us to the only part of Halloween that I can celebrate. Telling scary stories.
So lets talk about the stuff that scares us. But bear in mind that I am not interested in that time when you & your cousin went camping and stumbled in to an abandoned log cabin to discover the …Save it for real Halloween.
We want to talk stuff that scares you in Excel of course.