All articles in 'Excel Howtos' Category

Let’s say you have daily data and your boss wants to see the trends by week in month or week in quarter? How do you calculate the week number in a month or quarter? In this article, let me explain the logic and formulas we can use Excel for this.

You are the boss of ACME Inc. And one day, both of your accounts receivables team members Sara and James come to you with two versions of the customer payment data. How do you compare these two Excel sheets and reconcile the data? In this article, let me explain the step by step process.

We can use Excel’s LOOKUP function to quickly convert exam or test scores to letter grades like A+ or F. In this article, let me explain the process and necessary formulas. I will also share a technique to calculate letter grades from test scores using percentiles.

Excel 365’s FILTER() function is great for getting a cut of data that meets your criteria. But what if you need to filter and then show non-adjacent columns? Something like below. In this article, let me show you a few options to get discrete columns after filtering with the FILTER function.

Think of XLOOKUP as an improved version of VLOOKUP. In this article, learn all about the XLOOKUP function, it’s syntax, parameters with real-world xlookup examples.

Use the getBoldText() function in Excel to extract bolded portion of a cell automatically. Saves you time and helps with data cleaning.

So you have a SPILL error in your Excel tables? In this quick article, let me show you 3 easy fixes to the problem. Fix 0: See if Excel can auto-fix the formula This is not really a fix. But if you write certain types of formulas in table, Excel will warn you about the […]

Do you want to create a dynamic dependent drop down list in Excel like below? You can use XLOOKUP and data validation to set this up quickly. It is fully dynamic and works across a full column too.

Let’s say you have two dates in the cells D4 & D5 as above. You want to find out the duration in years, months & days between both. We can use the good-old DATEDIF formula for this.

Excel formulas acting slow? Today lets talk about optimizing & speeding up Excel formulas. Use these tips & ideas to super-charge your sluggish workbook. Use the best practices & formula guidelines described in this post to optimize your complex worksheet models & make them faster.

1. Use tables to hold the data
2. Use named ranges & named formulas
3. Use Dynamic Array formulas
4. Sort your data
5. Use manual calculation mode

… and more. Read on to learn these top 10 tips & ideas to improve performance of your excel formulas.

Can you split the atom? No, ok, how about splitting the expenses then?
In this homework challenge, can you take a look at the expenses of wolf-pack and tell me who owes who & how much?

Writing advanced formulas is a lot like LEGO. Use what you already have and combine them in creative ways. Let me demo with 5 examples.

It is Olympic season. Everyone I know is tracking the games and checking their country’s performance. One thing that we notice when looking at medal tally is,

A single Gold medal is worth more than any number of Silver medals. Like wise, a single Silver medal is worth more than any number of Bronze medals.

So, when you look at the ranking of countries, you see countries with single Gold medal higher up than countries with lots of Silver and Bronze medals (but no Gold).

Excel date time features are very handy and knowing how to use Excel date values can help you save a ton of time in your day to day spreadsheet chores. Let us prepare for your date with the sheet using these 10 handy tips.

Before jumping on to the tips, it helps to know how excel represents the date and time.

Microsoft Excel stores dates as sequential numbers … January 1, 1900 is serial number 1, and 28 July, 2021 is serial number 44405 because it is 44,405 days after January 1, 1900. Excel stores times as decimal fractions because time is considered a portion of a day.

Read on to learn more.

Ever wanted to create a two-level data validation list? You can use this simple trick to make two-level or cascading drop-down validation lists in Excel. You need some data, a pivot table and simple IF formulas to get this. Read on to understand the process and create your own two-level drop down lists in Excel.