Last week we saw a number of Excel Tips, Tricks, Cheats & Hacks supplied by Microsoft Excel MVP’s.
This week I have invited the Chandoo.org, Excel ninjas to contribute their Excel Tips, Tricks, Cheats & Hacks.
Chandoo has Excel ninjas?
Absolutely!
Do they have swords?
No (sigh)
But you can read all about them here: Chandoo.org Excel ninjas
The Chandoo.org Excel ninjas have solved in excess of 63,000 Excel questions in the 7 years that Chandoo.org Forums have been active. Hence they are imminently qualified in all areas Excel and as such the tips and tricks they will share will be essential reading.
Lets go:
001. Find & Replace Hack No.1 – Shrivallabha
You can use CTRL+J to simulate the Enter character in “Find and Replace” or “Text to Columns” fields.
Example:
Download the sample file here: Download sample file
Cells B2:B4 contain text with multiple lines per cell
There is an invisible Enter Character in those cells that can be added via use of Ctrl+J or Alt+Enter as the data is entered
To seperate each line please follow these instructions
Select B2:B4
Goto the Data, Text to Columns tab
Select Delimited
Select Other and Type Ctrl+J in the adjacent box
Next
Change the Destination to D2
Finish
Enjoy
Contribution by: Shrivallabha
002. Find & Replace Hack No.2 – Shrivallabha
Using escape character ~(tilde) while replacing *(asterisk) from text in the Find and Replace box.
If someone does Find and Replace * directly then everything gets replaced as * acts as wildcard.
So you have to use ~* for replacing an asterisk * character in a string.
Contribution by: Shrivallabha
003. Select All – Shrivallabha
You can use the Select All Shortcut Ctrl + A to select all items listed below
- Items in a List
- Contiguous Cells in a Range
- All cells in a worksheet, press Ctrl + A twice
- All shapes, Select first shape, then press Ctrl + A
Contribution by: Shrivallabha
004. Apply a filter to the first row of a range – Shrivallabha
Apply a filter to the first row of a range
Select any cell in a range
ALT D + F + F (Applies filter to first row of the cells contiguous with the current cell)
Contribution by: Shrivallabha
005. Fill Blank cells with the value in the cell above – Asheesh
- Select the range that contains blank cells you need to fill.
- Click Home > Find & Select > Go To Special…, and a Go To Special dialog box will appear, then check Blanks option.
- Click OK, and all of the blank cells have been selected.
- Assume that the Top Left Blank cell is A3, then input the formula =A2 into active cell A3 without changing the selection.
- Press Ctrl + Enter, Excel will copy the respective formula to all blank cells.
- At this point, the filled contents are formulas, and we need to convert the formals to values.
- Select the whole range, copy it Ctrl + C, and then press Ctrl + Alt + V to active the Paste Special… dialog box. Then select Values option from Paste, and select None option from Operation.
Contribution by: Asheesh
006. Multiple Consolidation Ranges to Pivot table – Asheesh
You can use “Multiple Consolidation Ranges” of Pivot Table to generate a unique list from Multiple Sources.
Goto the worksheet where your data lists are
To achieve this you need to add the Pivot Chart Wizard to either the QAT or Tab Bar
Start the Pivot Table Wizard or use the Keyboard Shortcut ALT + D P
Select Multiple Consolidation Ranges then click Next
Select Create a single page field for me and Next
Select your data range, including a blank leading column and then click Add button.
Notice: As per the excel file A1:A7 is blank.The Data is in Columns B:D.
Had this not been the case then we needed to insert a new blank column at the left of the data and that is Column A in this example
Click on Finish button
You will have a table like the one in the below image in a new worksheet.
Now go the Pivot Table Field options and do the following
You should have a unique list of values
You can Right Click on the Grand Total and DeSelect Grand Total to remove the Grand Total if required
You can now use this list in a Named Formula, Data Validation, Chart or other use where the required Unique List is required.
Note: If the Source Data changes you will need to Right Click on the List and select Refresh Data
Refer to the attached file: Download Sample File
Hui, in his second post at Chandoo.org, actually wrote about this technique in Feb 2010 but using a Single List – Read it here
Contribution by: Asheesh
007. Hiding Rows that are blank – Faseeh
Hiding Rows that are blank.
I have a sheet on daily basis in which certain cells in a column are blank I want to hide the rows with those blank cells.
What I do is…
- Select the cell range (the column).
- Press F5, you will get the Go To Menu.
- Check the option Blank.
- Press Ctrl+9 to hide the selected range.
Contribution by: Faseeh
008. Hiding Rows that are blank – Faseeh
To use the subtotal function to get the serial number right is the one that my accounts department loves. They were tired of creating commercial invoices with serial number created by dragging manually.
Here is the procedure.
Serial Number list that do not change with Filter
Assume you want to enter serial in column A and your data is present in column B. The formula look like this: =SUBTOTAL(3,$B$4:B4)
Drag downward. (This is only one time drag). Now if you filter the list the serial number will be changed accordingly.
Contribution by: Faseeh
009. Slab Rate Formula – Faseeh
This is a formula for slab rate that gives total price for a quantity with given slab rate.
So we want the price for 2,000 items
The first 1,000 will cost 0.35, the second 1,000 will cost 0.33
The total cost is found by =SUMPRODUCT((E3>=A3:A5)*(E3-A3:A5)*(B3:B5-B2:B4))
Download a sample file here: Download Sample File
Contribution by: Faseeh
010. Navigation tricks to get around spreadsheet faster – Luke M
Use Ctrl+Arrow key to jump to end of range.
Use Ctrl+Shift+Arrow key to select all data to end of range
Contribution by: Luke M
If you’d like to hire Luke for an Excel project, contact him at:
LukeMoraga@gmail.com
011. Select Visible Cells in a Filtered range – Luke M
When dealing with filtered ranges:
Use Alt+; to select visible cells only
Contribution by: Luke M
If you’d like to hire Luke for an Excel project, contact him at:
LukeMoraga@gmail.com
012. QAT – The Quick Access Toolbar; Shortcuts – Luke M
I’ve seen many users who don’t know about, or use the the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) very well.
Everyone has a list of things they use often. Put these on the QAT to improve your efficiency.
My favorite thing is that all items on the QAT get auto-assigned shortcuts of Alt+[1-9].
On my system, I have Paste Values and Paste Formulas in the 2nd and 3rd slots, so I can easily do those by hitting Alt+2 or Alt+3.
Press Alt +
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Contribution by: Luke M
If you’d like to hire Luke for an Excel project, contact him at:
LukeMoraga@gmail.com
013. Keyboard Shortcuts – Marc L
Insert Current Date
Insert current date in a cell : Ctrl + ;
Insert Current Time
Insert current time in a cell : Ctrl + :
Bulk enter values or formula into several cells
To allocate same Value or Formula to several cells, Select the cells, enter the Value or Formula and
accept into all cells by Ctrl + Enter
Date Check also known as Toggle Values/Formula Mode
Ctrl + ~ (English keyboard) or Ctrl + “ (3 on a French keyboard)
Is a toggle between displaying formulas or values in cells.
But I use it as a trick to check if dates are real dates and not text :
When displaying formulas is active, real dates appear as number,
bad dates remain as text !
This is the reason why I won all by bets against guys who insisted
Contribution by: Marc L
014. Break Strings into Words – Hui
A regular requirement in VBA is to be able to extract say the Name and Surnames from a string
Eg: Retrieve “Ian” & “Huitson” from “Ian David Huitson”
But what if I want the Middle Name, or what if I have two middle names like my children do?
These functions quickly become very cumbersome
A technique I recently learned simplifies this, whilst extending it to other delimiters and any number of sub-strings
You can easily parse a delimited string into an array.
You simply use the Split function with the appropriate delimiter as parameter.
The following code shows an example of using the Split function.
The above code makes an array of values of size 3, Arr(0) to arr(2)
arr(0) will contain “Ian”
arr(1) will contain “David”
arr(2) will contain “Huitson”
If you are unsure of the number of array elements you should use the Ubound() function to determine the size
Ubound(arr,1) which will return the reference number of the last element = 2 in the example
in the example of my Name which has 3 elements
arr(2) = arr(Ubound(arr,1)) and each will contain the string “Huitson”
You can download both the above sample from this sample file
I picked this up a few months back from Excel Mastery, my new favorite Excel VBA site
Contribution by: Hui
015. Use the Camera Tool – BobHC
You can sue the Camera Tool to setup dashboards that quickly combine data from a number of worksheets into a common location
Read about its use: http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/12/02/excel-camera-tool-help/
And for fancy applications: http://www.addictivetips.com/microsoft-office/camera-tool-function-in-excel-2010/
Contribution by: BobHC
Closing
Many many thanks to the Chandoo.org ninjas who contributed above.
I hope you get to to revue all the tips and pass comments and appreciation back to the authors as appropriate.
Next week I have to do some real paid work and will travelling in Timor, Indonesia, but in two weeks time the Excel Tips, Tricks, Cheats & Hacks theme will continue with the Excel Tips, Tricks, Cheats & Hacks – Notable Excel Sites (non-MVP) Edition, so keep an eye out for that.
If you have any Excel Tips, Tricks, Cheats & Hacks that you would like to share with the community, please leave a tip in the comments below.
All the user contributions will be combined into one final post: Excel Tips, Tricks, Cheats & Hacks – Users Edition
33 Responses to “Show Months & Years in Charts without Cluttering”
Very CooOOOoool 🙂
Would it work if I merely change the display format for the dates, or do they actually need to be retyped in that format (Nov, Dec, etc)?
ps- it's only about 34 donuts per month, or slightly more than 1 per day. Yum!
To make it work automatically when you create a chart, delete the labels above the Year and Month columns, but keep the label above the Y data (Donuts). The blank cells tell Excel that the first row and first two columns (indicated by the blanks) are special, so it uses the first row for series names an the first two columns for X axis labels.
This is better than the other kind of donut chart, but you'll soon be carrying a big donut around your midsection.
First off, thank you Chandoo for being respectful and taking out the "Jesus" comment. Not that I'd threaten to kill you, or start world-wide riots, or make you go into hiding if you didn't (as OTHERS would; wink, wink, nudge, nudge)... I just really appreciate your respectulness and consideration; so thank you. I was meaning to write you about it, but when I came to your site you'd already made the edit... so again, thank you!
Secondly, I wanna say I think there's an easier way to do what you are demonstrating. I've got a pivot chart with months of data and all I had to do was right-click the x axis and then select "format axis", under "Axis Options" there's a check-box that says "Multi-level Category Labels". The chart I was able to do this on was a pivotchart however so maybe it wouldn't be that easy for a non-pivotchart.
Anyway, love the site. Keep up the good work. Thanks also for being so open about your success, it's very encouraging and motivating.
God (aka Jesus) Bless. 🙂
Hi Chandoo - great site! Another option to save space is to simply rotate the orientation of the text by 90 degrees, so the dates read vertical rather than horizontal. However, I like the elegance of your solution also.
Hey Chandoo -- Great tip. Only yesterday I was working through some strange behaviour with formatting dates in PivotCharts. Seems the axes never want to cooperate. This is a neat and elegant solution I hadn't thought of using. May need to abandon pivotcharts to use formulas like that, but if we use dynamic named ranges, no big sacrifice.
BTW, whatever did you do to get your site blocked in China? Never heard of regime change by a grass-root spreadsheet movement. Maybe your ISP is hosting some problem sites. Chandoo.org is certainly worth it for me to fire up the VPN, but I'm sure you would lose a lot of other visitors from the middle kingdom.
Chandoo ... pls help.. the link is blocked over here... pls can you put the regular link... 🙂
@JP... Excel Axis formatting is linked to cell formatting by default. So you can just have the dates which are formatted to look like months (mmm).
@Erin: It was not my intention to mock anyone's faith or religion. I just used the word as it is quite common. I decided to remove it as I got 2 emails from readers requesting for the same.
Also, the pivot charts take pivot table groupings by default, so you need not do any of the above while making charts from pivot tables.
@Kein: I am not sure why Chinese authorities decided to block my site. I wish they would actually look at the content instead of blocking sites based on simple text matching rules.
@Kapil: The file is mirrored here: http://chandoo.org/img/d/date-axis-months-years-trick.xls
Cool, really cool...
Nice one Chandoo,
Also would like to mention abt useful method while creating dynamic charts.
In any chart where in the months keep on adding - instead of changing the range for the chart every time we add a month, we can actually format the months as dates (probably 1st of every month) still keep the format as "mmm" AND while selecting the data, we can select a huge rows (date column) once and for all, and the chart adjusts automatically with the data that we entered. So next month when I enter Dec's data, I need not change the source data of the chart, however it automatically adjusts.
Hope I made sense.!
Regards,
SS
Thanks, Chandoo! This is a great tip - one that I will definitely put to use. I typically have an axis with mmm yy format, aligned vertically, but this will definitely look a bit cleaner (except in cases where the chart is too small for the axis labels to be displayed horizontally, even without the mmm yy on one line). Thanks again!
Tom
Chandoo,
Thank you for the posts you are very diligent not to mention very helpful. I would like to know how to get the separation lines on the axis? For example your candy sales chart has longer lines separating east and west how do you format that?
Thanks for being very awesome!
-Josh
Hi Chandoo, we can look the formulas because there is a message:"Unsupported features".
Could you send a diferent Link ?
Thanks.
@SS But what if you've got formulas in the data block (i.e where you would enter static data for the month of december)? My chart now shows #N/A #N/A in the axis with no data for all future dates.
Chandoo, I've got a dynamic range set up showing #N/A errors for future dates. The MMM-DD date format format in row works fine, but when I use YYYY and MMM in two rows, the axis shows #N/A #N/A for all future dates with no data. How would you go about keeping those future months hidden?
Matt -
In order for the axis to automatically extend to the dates within the range and ignore #N/A at the end, you need a date-scale axis, and for this you need to use one column with the complete date, not two columns with year and month.
If you want to use two columns, you need to generate Names in the worksheet which define ranges only as long as the number of months. I have a review of dynamic chart approaches in http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/dynamic-chart-review/ and a whole category on my blog at http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/category/dynamic-charts/. Chandoo also has examples of his own on this site.
How do you make a dynamic chart out of this?
I can't get the axis labels range right.
I tried something like this:
=OFFSET(REPORT!$H$10:$I$10;0;0;COUNTA(REPORT!$H$10:$I$100);1)
Any idea?
Ethan -
Your offset formula defines a range 1 row in size, but the technique here requires 2 rows. Your definition should end with
;2)
instead of
;1)
Thanks Jon,
Got it working now
Great! Now, is there any way to do this directly in Powerpoint? I don't like having linked excel files, so I create the graphs right inside Powerpoint, any way to do this there? I tried and was unsuccessful.
Thanks.
Cool tip Chandoo......thanks
[...] extract year and month from dates to avoid a mess in our stock chart. Chandoo has a great post: Show Months & Years in Charts without ClutteringIn cell B2:=YEAR(D2)In cell B3:=IF(YEAR(D3)=YEAR(D2), "", YEAR(D3))Cell C2:=IF(TEXT(D2, [...]
Hi there,
I have got a data ranging for 3 years. I want to show a chart which shows Jan of 2011, 2012 and 2013 together side by side; then Feb11, Feb12 and Feb13 side by side, then Mar11, Mar12 and Mar13, and so on until December.
Please help. Thanks.
@Bilal
Do you want a number of charts next to each other as separate charts or the data next to each other in a single chart?
What type of chart were you thinking about?
Can you post your data for us to review?
Refer upload instructions at: http://chandoo.org/forum/threads/posting-a-sample-workbook.451/
Hi there
Very good solution this. I have another question on it, though. How do you format the X-axis with monthly gaps (ie, with labels "Jan 2012", "Apr", "Jul", "Oct", "Jan 2013", "Mar", etc), when you're dealing with a data series with weekly or daily data points? The Axis Options dialogue box doesn't appear to offer "Date axis" as an option under the "Axis Type" section.
I've managed to do it in one case with weekly data by setting the interval between tick marks at 13 -- the approximate number of weeks in a quarter -- to get 3-month intervals. But this wouldn't work if I wanted to show 1-month intervals, or had a more detailed daily data series to work with.
Any luck getting the dates to work on a scatter graph? I'm only getting numbers. Works fine on line graphs though.
How can we do the vice versa? i.e. on the x-axis showing year on the level 1, and months on level 2.
I wanted to build these kind of axis labels for 5 years, with year on top and months at the bottom, but it should form in such a way that the seperating lines should seperate the entire data set only at December of each year, and no lines in between any month.
@Apoorve
Just re-arrange the columns
You need to put a space in all cells where you don't want a year
See the attached file
http://chandoo.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Chart-for-Apoorve.xlsx
Unfortunately you don't get any control over lines its all or nothing.
Hello - the link seems to be broken:
http://cid-b663e096d6c08c74.office.live.com/view.aspx/Public/date-axis-months-years-trick.xls
Regards.
Like!!
Three times already today I have used this website and saved a ton of work time in researching excel tricks.
Suggestion: Why not have a "like" or "this article was useful to me" button. That way you can see what is most useful by your users and maybe generate more content based on those "likes".
Just saying. Thanks again and you're doing a great job!
Thanks for the tip. However, I couldn't download your file. The link is broken.
Thank You for taking the time to post this tip. I hope that you have a blessed day.
The link does not work properly and I'm not sure how to actually get the graph to display like this, its frustrating me a tonne. I cant work out what to google either to find an answer elsewhere! 🙁
Is this possible with waterfall chart. Data hereunder -
Years Abbrevation Amt
2020 BEG 2,006
REV 1,950
EMP 1,058
DM (3,244)
OOE 1,078
OPMT 182
AB (638)
END 2,392
2021 REV 8,534
EMP 67
DM (2,142)
OOE (3,120)
OPMT 510
AB 1,008
END 7,249