Excel

One Minute Tip: Freeze Panes to Keep Excel Spreadsheet Headers in Sight

Submitted by schwarz on

It's easy to get lost in spreadsheets — if data fills lots of rows or columns, when you scroll down or across you lose sight of column or row headers, and then information loses its meaning.

Freeze Panes can help by letting you view column and row headings continuously, while you scroll your document. It lets you keep a row or column still, while the rest of the cells around it can scroll freely.

Improve Your Safety Net: Tweak AutoSave in Microsoft Office

Submitted by schwarz on

life preserverComputer crash?  Power went out during a storm?  And you were in the middle of editing a budget spreadsheet and didn't get a chance to save your work?  Ugh.

Microsoft Office programs (which include Word, Excel, PowerPoint) are by default set to automatically save an open file every 10 minutes.  So when you re-open the program, your file should still have all the changes you have made — except for the last 10 minutes of work.  (Your file may retain more recent changes if you manually saved it yourself by pressing Control+S on the keyboard.)

10 minutes between autosaves not good enough for you?  Me neither.  Here's how to better protect your hard work:

Timesaver Tip: Let Excel Fill in the Blanks for You

Submitted by schwarz on

Watch this short video tutorial to see how you can save time by letting Excel ...

  • auto-fill cells with text you've entered previously on a spreadsheet
  • turn numbers into currency amounts, and
  • auto-complete a series — like days of the week, months of the year, and number sequences.

Convert a Row to a Column in Excel

Submitted by schwarz on

If you've started a spreadsheet and then realized it would make more sense to have the data organized in columns rather than rows (or rows rather than columns), you can use Excel's Transpose function to make it so.

Find out how to do it in Excel 2003, 2007 and 2010 at the illustrated step-by-step instructions at The How-To Geek.

Make Short Work of Common Tasks: Use Excel's Paste Special Command

Submitted by schwarz on

paste special command in ExcelIn Excel, when you want to copy information into a new column, the column’s width doesn’t automatically adjust to accommodate the new data. But if you use Excel's "Paste Special" option, you can copy the source column’s width to the target column.

In Excel 2007 and 2010, Paste Special is in the Clipboard group on the Home tab. In Excel 2003, Paste Special is on the Edit menu.

Here's how to do it:

Excel Tip: Add a Comment to a Cell in Your Spreadsheet

Submitted by schwarz on

You can add a comment to any cell to make your Excel spreadsheet easier to understand.  This is handy any time you're sharing a spreadsheet with someone, to indicate how a complex formula works, or just to jot a note to yourself.

It's an unobtrusive way to add comments, that doesn't clutter up your spreadsheet.

Here's how to add a comment to a cell:

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