Ever received an Excel spreadsheet with those crazy divide by zero errors – #DIV/0!? It’s an annoyance as it just draws the eye to the wrong cell. Instead, take 5 minutes to apply this fix so you can concentrate on the important parts.
Excel
How to Use Excel Pivot Tables to Organize Data
Excel pivot tables are a feature that you should learn how to use. Instead of analyzing countless spreadsheet records, these tables can aggregate your information and show a new perspective in a few steps. You can move columns to rows or vice versa. This short tutorial can get you started with your data analysis. (Check Resources section for pivot table example data.)
How to Use IF Function in Excel
One way to make your Excel spreadsheets smarter is to use the IF function. The program will evaluate one field to see if it’s true and enter a new value based on whether the condition was met. This article and sample worksheet shows a simple example of calculating an allowance.
Simple Methods to Copy Excel Formula Values
Recently I was watching an Excel product review and noticed the author copy Excel values from a formula into another column. This was fine, but then he deleted the column with the formula. Sound familiar? In this tutorial, Ill show you two faster and easier ways to overwrite formulas with their values. (Includes video demo and sample spreadsheet.)
How to Sort by Color in Excel
Excel allows you to sort your columns and rows by lots of ways. One less obvious way is to sort items by color. This is handy if you apply a background color to a cell or different font color. This tutorial explains how to do the sort. You can also filter by color.
Limit Mistakes with Excel Dependent Drop Down Lists
This Excel tutorial shows you how to build a worksheet using dependent lists. In other words, the selection you make from one list defines the options on the next list. For example, if you select California from one list, the next list filters your selection to just California agents. Includes sample Excel worksheet.
Solution: PivotTable Field Name is not Valid
Like many people, I have a love-hate relationship with software. It’s great when it works, but it’s so frustrating when you get a cryptic error message. And these messages seem to appear when you’re short on time and patience
Keep Leading Zeros in Excel
Excel is a very powerful program, but sometimes it doesn’t act the way we wish. A case in point is importing a CSV file with zip codes. If you’re not careful how you open your file and apply different formats, you could be in for some surprises. The same problem can happen with part or order numbers.
Quick Intro to Excel Named Ranges
Excel has a the ability to set a range of cells and give them a name. You may have seen this when you print a certain area by highlighting the columns and rows. However, that same feature can be used in other areas such formulas. It makes interpreting your worksheet much easier.
How to Count Characters in Excel
A reader posed an interesting conversion problem between an old database and a new online one. She wanted to use an Excel file to move the data from one system to another. However, the new system would not accept field values longer than a certain number of characters. In this tutorial, I’ll show how to check the character count in Excel using the LEN function.