A few weeks ago we looked at a way to fill blank cells in an Excel report, so you’d be able to filter or sort a table of data. The downside of that technique is that it’s harder to pick out the sections in a report. The headings don’t pop off the page, but are [...]

In Excel, you can automatically copy data from one sheet to another, without using a macro. For example, there’s a long list of orders on one worksheet, and you’d like to find your largest orders, and copy those to a different worksheet.
You can use Excel's Advanced Filter feature to automatically select and copy the data [...]

Well, I finally finished creating all the names in my client’s Excel workbook, and sent the file back to them.
To help my client see what I’d done, I created a list of the names in the workbook, and sent it along with the main file. It was also a quick way for me to double-check [...]

This week I’m working on a giant Excel workbook, and my client wants all the data entry cells named. There are about 600 cells to name, so I’m looking for ways to same some time.
A quick way to name a cell is to click in the Name Box, type the name, the press the Enter [...]

A few years ago, I added a sample workbook on my site, that features an adjustable Smiley Face Chart. Type a number between 0 and 100, and the mouth changes from a smile to a frown, based on the score.

The Score cell, H3, has data validation, to ensure that users enter a valid number. Below, [...]

You’ve probably used an Excel data validation drop down list, where you can click the arrow, and select an item to fill the cell. In the worksheet shown below, you can select a month from the drop down, and it overwrites any previous selection in that cell.

Select Multiple Items From the Drop Down List
Instead [...]

This summer I helped a client automate several Excel sales reports, comparing sales forecasts to actual sales, and last year’s results to this year’s. It’s a complicated process, pulling numbers from different systems, updating lookup tables, compiling the numbers, and creating reports by product, by customer and by sales rep. Before we automated the [...]

If you name a range of cells in Excel, you can use that name in a formula, or as the source for a data validation list, or as the data source for a pivot table.
You can also select the range, and use it to jump to specific cells when entering data, as in the Grades [...]

For more than a year I’ve posted Excel related tweets every week, ranging from the hilarious, to the bizarre, to the somewhat useful.
Lately though, using the search feature in Twitter pulls up long lists of ads, spam, ads, spam, and more spam. To see for yourself, you can search for Excel Spreadsheet in Twitter. [...]

For a simple database, Excel can do a pretty good job of organizing and reporting your data. This example shows a movie collection database, but you could set up something similar to keep track of books, sales orders, or almost anything else.
In this database you can store movie data, then create a list of movies [...]