No matter where you look, there is a consistent message that it is bad to merge cells in Excel; instead, we should use Center Across Selection. Whenever my friend Richard Sumner posts about his love of merged cells on LinkedIn, he is always met with many replies stating that merging cells is terrible. But here … Read more
Often as Excel users, we can look across at Power BI and see the convenience of having a sharable web-based dashboard. It’s nice to have each person viewing a dashboard without affecting other users. We don’t have anything similar in Excel… or do we? Normally, if we share an Excel Workbook saved in OneDrive or … Read more
Normally, we build user interfaces so that one button runs one macro. But what if we want the user to select which macro to run? How can we handle that scenario? Well, that’s what we are looking at in this post, how to run any macro from one button. Yes, you heard me. One button … Read more
This post looks at how to Resize an Excel sheet. It’s a common requirement for users and is especially useful when creating dashboards for different-size monitors. Every office I have ever worked in has been an equipment battleground. It didn’t matter what the equipment was; it just had to be better than everybody else. A new keyboard, … Read more
You’re probably already aware that Excel has two main calculation modes: automatic and manual. I’m sure everybody would prefer to use automatic calculation; however, formula complexity and large data sets can cause spreadsheet calculation to be slow. As a result, some users set Excel to manual calculation mode. The differences between these two calculation modes can … Read more
The space character for an Excel user can be a real problem. When exporting data from various IT systems, that export will often include extra spaces around values. Finding a way to remove spaces in Excel is a crucial skill for every user. We often can’t see the space characters, but Excel sees them. They … Read more
When using Excel, we often display numbers as decimals. However, that is not necessarily the best way for users to read the information; fractions can be a better option. We could enter fractions as text, but then we can’t use them in calculations. So, in this post, we’ll look at how to display fractions in Excel. Table … Read more
One of the first things we learn in Excel is the magic of the $ symbol. It freezes the row or column, so the cell reference does not change when copying a formula. This is known as an absolute reference. With the introduction of Tables came a different (and more semantic) way to reference cells, called structured … Read more
We have all experienced it, and often at the worst possible moment. For whatever reason, Excel’s formulas aren’t calculating correctly. The good news is that it is usually something simple. Once we know the most likely causes, it is easier to troubleshoot the problem. So, in this post, we look at the most likely reasons … Read more
In this post, we look at using Excel to reference another workbook without opening it. While this may seem like a great idea, we need to be very careful. When using this technique, a lot can go wrong without us realizing it. Let’s explore this area. Please read to the end and ensure you know … Read more