Productivity Portfolio
Valuing your time & technology
Below is a list of various Microsoft Excel tutorials that we've done. These include step by step instructions. In some cases, there may be sample spreadsheets or video screencasts. This section is several pages long so be sure to use the blue Next Page >> button at the bottom of the search box to the right.
I've also been updating these articles to reflect the latest Excel version. Presently, I'm using Microsoft Office 365. However, you may see some tutorials that reflect older versions. All the screen snaps have been done on a Windows computer and reflect those commands.
If you don't have Microsoft Excel, there are three options:
The free version does require you to have a Microsoft account. As you might expect of a free product, there are some limitations. For example, you can open a workbook that has macros, but you won't be able to edit them.
And speaking of free resources, Microsoft also has an Excel Glossary that you can use.
You can read more about the different options on the Microsoft site.
It should also be noted that Office 365 releases new features on a monthly basis and even sooner if you're in the Insiders program. In some cases, these new features may not make it to older standalone versions. An example of this is the new XLOOKUP function.
If you walk into any office, you’ll likely find a Microsoft Excel user. It’s a common and useful business analysis tool if used properly. The problem with many spreadsheets is all the cells look the same. You have to hunt for key information by scanning through a range of cells. Fortunately,
Learn More about Highlight Important Cells with Excel Conditional Formatting
The days after an election people often ask “what-if” type questions. Some races are close and the vote count can go on for days. In other cases, people want to know how many votes would've been needed to win. Excel Goal Seek is a simple tool for answering these and other forecasting questions.
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. This happened to me last week when I needed to produce some stats and
Learn More about Solution: PivotTable Field Name is not Valid
Awhile back, I attended a conference where an expert strongly urged participants not to use color in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. She claimed you couldn’t sort columns by color. She went on to say one of her clients had done this and she spent hours fixing the spreadsheet. Oh my. Why Use
Earlier this month, I got a request from our city manager asking if I could randomly select 150 people from a mailing list. No darts allowed. I think the purpose was to do a survey, but maybe it was to select contest winners. It turns out that Microsoft has an Excel random number generator. This
I like to think of an editor as a tool that enhances your work and offers guidance. This holds true whether the editor is a real person or a built-in tool like the Excel macro editor. One benefit of Microsoft's editor is that it is a teaching tool. Once you start playing around and learn how to edit
There are certain words that seem to scare folks when it comes to Excel. One of those words is "macro". I think this is a classic case of assuming the worst. We think we have to learn how to use code, logic and a bunch of other stuff like Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The truth is Excel has a
Have you ever received an Excel file and wondered how it was filtered without checking each column’s data filter? Or, maybe you needed to send a file and show your filters. That was a problem I faced recently when I started with a list of 3200 non-profits for the county. I needed a way for Excel to
Learn More about Use VBA Function to Show Excel Filter Criteria
