Customize Excel ribbon – How-to guide, FAQs and Help

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Custom Ribbons in Excel 2010 - Howto

It is very easy to customize Excel ribbon and save time. You can make a new ribbon or modify an existing one with new group of commands. This can be a huge productivity boost for people using MS Office applications.

How to create your own ribbon in Excel 2019 / 365 / 2016 / 2013 / 2010:

Customizing ribbon is as simple as customizing your coffee at Starbucks.

  1. Right click on ribbon area and select “customize ribbon” option.
    Customize ribbon - right click on ribbon area
  2. Now, add a new tab (or group or both) – see below for illustration.
  3. Add a few commands (or buttons) to your new ribbon
  4. Click ok and you have a sparkling new ribbon ready.

10 things you should know about ribbon customization

This is how the customize Excel ribbon screen looks.
Ribbon Customization Screen in Excel 2010 - 10 things to know

I have highlighted 10 items on the screen. Read thru below 10 points to master ribbon customization.

  1. Use New Tab button to create a new ribbon tab.
  2. Use New Group button to add a new group of commands to an existing or new ribbon.
  3. Rename button helps you to change the name of an existing custom group or tab.
  4. Once you add a group / tab, you have to select it to add items to that group / tab.
  5. You can choose the type of commands you want to add to your ribbon tab / group. You can also add any macros as well (sweet!).
  6. Now select the command you want to add to your group
  7. Click on “Add” button to add the command to your ribbon tab / group.
  8. You can use “Remove” button to remove any commands from custom tabs / groups.
  9. Use the up / down arrow buttons to move your ribbon tab / group up or down. (For eg. you can move your custom tab to first, ie before home tab).
  10. You can export your ribbon customizations and re-use them in other computers (both ribbon and QAT settings will be exported).

Ribbon and QAT Customization – Few Tips:

Use “Hide Command Labels” option to shrink your ribbon groups

See the below illustration to understand what I mean.

Hide Command Labels option in Custom groups - Ribbon customization - excel 2010

Customize tool ribbon tabs to save a ton of time:

By default, when you go to “customize ribbon” screen, you only see main tabs. But you can also customize tool specific tabs. For eg. I use only a handful of chart formatting options and all of these are spread across 3 different tabs – design, layout and format. So I combined all the options I use regularly to come up with a simple ribbon tab like this:
Custom Ribbon tab for charting options

As you can guess, the above ribbon tab appears only when I am formatting a chart.

Add groups of commands to QAT:

You can now add a group of commands (for eg. all alignment options) to Quick Access Toolbar to improve your productivity.
Add groups of commands to QAT in excel 2010

Minimize ribbon with a click:

Press the ^ icon you see next to help icon to instantly collapse / expand ribbon. You can also use CTRL+F1 keyboard shortcut to do the same.

Export Ribbon Settings

In 2010 and later you can Export your Ribbon & QAT to a file that can be imported to another computer, or after reinstalling Office
In the Options dialog > Customize Ribbon (or Quick Access Toolbar) options > Import / Export button at bottom of both dialogs.

Ribbon Customization Gotchas!

While ribbon customization is a great move ahead for Excel in particular and Office apps in general, there are a few gotchas. Beware of the following to avoid un-necessary troubles.

  • When you add a group or tab, excel doesnt ask you for a name. Make sure you click on “rename” button to change the name to something you remember.
  • You cannot add commands to an existing excel defined group. You can however add groups to existing ribbons.
  • Even if you try to make a group with exactly same commands, the group may look different.
  • The ribbon and QAT customizations you do are local to your installation of excel only. You have to export the customizations and import them before they work on other comps.

What is your opinion about ribbon customization?

I am very happy to see the possibilities of ribbon customizations. It can improve productivity and simplify a lot of things.

What about you? How are you planning to customize your ribbon? What tips and ideas you have to share with us? Please tell me using comments.

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27 Responses to “Sum of Values Between 2 Dates [Excel Formulas]”

  1. dexter says:

    I would apply a filter and use function subtotal, with option 9. This way you can see multiple views based on the filter.

  2. Michael Azer says:

    hey Chandoo, the solutions you proposed are very efficient, but if I wanted to be fancy I would do it this way .. the references are as your example workbook.
    =SUM(INDIRECT("C"&(MATCH(F5,B5:B95)+4)):INDIRECT("C"&(MATCH(F6,B5:B95)+4)))

  3. Luke M says:

    I like things simple:
    =SUMIF(B5:B95,">="&F5,C5:C95)-SUMIF(B5:B95,">"&F6,C5:C95)

  4. Matt S says:

    use something like: =SUM(OFFSET(B1,0,0,DATEDIF(A1,D1,"d")))
    and have D1 be the date that I want to sum to.

  5. Tom J says:

    In Excel 2003 (and earlier) I'd use an array formula to calculate either with nested if statements (as shown here) or with AND.

    {=SUM(IF(B5:B95>F5,IF(B5:B95<F6,C5:C95,0),0))}

    Note that I truly made this for BETWEEN the dates, not including the dates

  6. Andrew says:

    I turned the data set into a table named Dailies.
    I named the two limits StartDate and EndDate.

    And used an array formula:

    {=SUM((Dailies[Date]>=StartDate)*(Dailies[Date]<=EndDate)*Dailies[Sales])}

  7. Frank Linssen says:

    If I would still be using the old Excel I would do it as follows:

    SUMIF($B$5:$B$95,"<="&H6,$C$5:$C$95)-SUMIF($B$5:$B$95,"<"&H5,$C$5:$C$95)

    Works as simple as it is.

    Regards

  8. ikkeman says:

    =sum(index(c:c,match(startdate,c:c,1)+1):index(c:c,match(enddate,c:c,1))

  9. ikkeman says:

    =sum(index(c:c,match(startdate,b:b,1)+1):index(c:c,match(enddate,b:b,1))

  10. ram says:

    Great examples and thanks to Chandoo. You have simplified my work.

  11. Rony says:

    Hi! great tips I have found in your page, have you seen this
    http://runakay.blogspot.com/2011/10/searching-in-multiple-excel-tabs.html

  12. [...] I'm not sure I understand your question fully, but have a look at this: Sum of Values Between 2 Dates [Excel Formulas] | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online [...]

  13. Amanda says:

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

  14. abdalurhman says:

    =SUMIF(A2:A11;">="&B13;B2:B11)-SUMIF(A2:A11;"<"&A11;B2:B11)

  15. Eliza says:

    awesome... thank yoo Chandoo!

  16. dockhem says:

    which is most efficient and fast, if all are efficient ?

  17. jmassiah says:

    Thank you for this formula, I've just spent ages trying to find something to work on my data, I knew it would be possible! Don't care if others think there are easier/other ways to do it, you explained it so I understood it and could apply it to what I was doing so I'm happy!

  18. Nagaraju says:

    The above said example is awesome for calculating values between dates,

    can you pls let know how to calculate sale values if we have 10 sales boys for
    ex: 1,rama
    2,krishna
    3,ashwin
    4,naga
    5,suresh

    how much rama sale value between 1/jan/2015 to 10/jun/15
    how much krishna sale value between 10/jan/2015 to 15/july/2015
    i think you understood can you pls let me know the formula for how to calculate the sale between diffrent sale man sale value from master data file

    Thanks,
    Nagaraju

  19. Viv says:

    Hi

    I have a list of people's names in column A, I have a list of dates in column B which records the dates they have been off sick, in column C I have either 1 if it is a full sick day or 0.5 if it is a half day.

    What I would like to do is to add up the number of dates a specific person has been off within two dates.

    For example, I want to look at my list of names and to find Joe Bloggs (column A), then add up all his sick days (column C). The start date will be in cell E1 and the end date will be in F1.

    If this possible using SUMIFS?

    List of names are in range A2:A100

    List of dates in B2:B100

    List of sick days (either 0.5 or 1 in C2:C100

    The start date is in cell E2

    The end date is in cell F2

    Your help would be greatly appreciated.

    • Loknathan says:

      Yes, with the help of SUMIFS you can have the solution.
      Note: you need have an extra col. D2 where you will input Name of the person.
      =SUMIFS(C2:C100,A2:A100,D2,C2:C100,">="&E2,C2:C100,"<"&F2)

      Col. A Col. B Col. C Col.D Col. E Col. F
      Name Date Sales
      ABC 28-Jun-11 1 MNO 28-Jun-11 25-Sep-11
      XYZ 29-Jun-11 0.5
      MNO 30-Jun-11 1
      PQR 1-Jul-11 1

      • Loknathan says:

        Typo ERROR / Correction in formula:
        Yes, with the help of SUMIFS you can have the solution.
        Note: you need have an extra col. D2 where you will input Name of the person.
        =SUMIFS(C2:C100,A2:A100,D2,B2:B100,">="&E2,B2:B100,"<"&F2)

  20. Viv says:

    Hi

    I have a list of people's names in column A, I have a list of dates in column B which records the dates they have been off sick, in column C I have either 1 if it is a full sick day or 0.5 if it is a half day.

    What I would like to do is to add up the number of dates a specific person has been off within two dates.

    For example, I want to look at my list of names and to find Joe Bloggs (column A), then add up all his sick days (column C). The start date will be in cell E1 and the end date will be in F1.

    If this possible using SUMIFS?

    List of names are in range A2:A100

    List of dates in B2:B100

    List of sick days (either 0.5 or 1 in C2:C100

    The start date is in cell E2

    The end date is in cell F2

    Your help would be greatly appreciated.

    Viv

  21. AC says:

    Thanks for this - it solved the problem that I was having. However can someone please explain to me why the "" needs to be around >= and <= as well as why we need to add & in order for the formula to work? Thanks in advance!

  22. Ufoo says:

    This formula works perfectly as well. Any ideas?: =SUM(INDEX(C5:C95,MATCH(H5,B5:B95,1)):INDEX(C5:C95,MATCH(H6,B5:B95,1)))

  23. Ufoo says:

    ikkeman had posted the same thing.

  24. murray says:

    I am trying to sum total a range of cells between date ranges ie column n has $ amounts column d has the transaction dates ie 1/3/2015 or 25/3/2015 or 25/4/2015 column b has the text saying drp or distribution - reinv

    In another cell I am trying to sum or total (in column n) with the value of a range of different dates (column d) that contain different text (column b) ie cell n48 is 50, n65 is 85, n165 is 36

    with the dates ie cell d48 is 1/3/2015, d65 is 25/3/2015 and d165 is 25/4/2015

    with different text that says drp or distribution - reinv ie cell b48 is drp, b65 is distribution - reinv, b165 is drp

    If I wanted to sum the amounts between 1/3/2015 to 31/3/2015 with drp then the total would be 50. Also if I wanted to sum the amounts between 1/4/2015 to 30/4/2015 with drp the sum total would be 36 If I wanted to sum the amounts between 1/3/2015 to 31/3/2015 with drp and distribution - reinv the sum would be 115

    What would the formula be for these different questions

    hope you can help, it has been driving me nuts and cant work it out

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