Download pdf - Excel Tips and Tricks Vol 1

8/19/2019 Excel Tips and Tricks Vol 1

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MS Excel

Tips & Tricks Ramzan Rajani’s Favorite

Volume 1 – 2013

Ramzan Rajani

Microsoft Excel Specialist

Microsoft Certified Trainer


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MS Excel Tips & Tricks

Contents

1) Quickly Insert System date / time...................................................................................... 1

2) Combining first & last name / product ID & product code ............................................... 2

3) Convert your Horizontal data into Vertical ....................................................................... 3

4) Highlight duplicate records ............................................................................................... 4

5) Removing duplicate records .............................................................................................. 5

6) Split first name and last name into separate cells .............................................................. 6

7) Change Case of Text in Excel ........................................................................................... 7

8) Protect worksheet - Protecting your data from modifying ................................................ 8

9) Protect workbook - Protecting your sheet from deletion ................................................... 9

10) Protect your excel file with password while opening .................................................... 10

11) Pin Documents, Workbooks to the Recent File List in Excel ....................................... 11

12) Compare 2 Excel Files using View side by side Mode ................................................. 12

13) Working with several Excel files everyday? Use workspace feature ............................ 13

14) Use Text Format to Preserve Leading Zeros in Excel ................................................... 14

15) Use fixed number of zeros in the starting of number .................................................... 15

16) Shortcuts (Select/Insert/Delete/Hide& Unhide rows, cols & sheets) ............................ 16

17) Quick Filtering ............................................................................................................... 17

18) Creating drop down in cells for Region / Country / City orTeam ................................. 18

19) Shortcuts (Alignments / Borders / Sorting /Filtering / Hide/ Unhide Ribbons) ............ 19

20) Removing extra spaces for the sentence (TRIM) .......................................................... 20


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Ramzan Rajani – Email: [email protected] – Web: ramzanrajani.com 1

1) Quickly Insert System date / time

You can use below functions & shortcuts to insert system / current date & time.

=TODAY() and =NOW()

Function

=today() Will insert date

=now() Will insert date & time

Both the above formulas are dynamic, means if you open the Excel file next day,

you will get the current date & current time updated.

If you don’t want to update, then use the below shortcuts to insert date & time.

Keyboard Shortcut for inserting date & time

Ctrl ; Will insert date

Ctrl Shit ; Will insert date & time

If you would like to insert next day date or yesterday date.

Function

=today()+1 Will insert tomorrow’s date

=today()-1 Will insert yesterday’s date


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2) Combining first & last name / product ID & product code

Above formula can be written in this way also =Concatenate(B2," ",C2)


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3) Convert your Horizontal data into Vertical

Steps

1) Select A1 to P4

2) Press - Ctrl C - To copy the data

3) Select Cell A8

4) Press Ctrl Alt V (Shortcut of Paste Special)

5) Select Transpose OK


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4) Highlight duplicate records

Want to find duplicate or unique entries in Excel 2010?


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5) Removing duplicate records

Microsoft has made it quicker to remove duplicates, all it takes now is two simple steps.

Steps:

1) Keep your cursor on any cell inside the data or select whole data.

2) Data Ribbon Remove Duplicates (As shown in the above screenshot)

3) Unselect All

4) 4) Select Emp ID column and click on OK


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6) Split first name and last name into separate cells

Use the Convert Text to Columns Wizard in Excel when you need to split combined data into

separate columns, such as a first name and last name; or city, state, and zip code. This type

of combined data often results when you open or import files created in another

application.

1) If necessary, insert blank columns to the right of the cells you want to convert into

multiple columns.If you want your data in three columns, you must have two blank

columns

Steps:

Select Column B

Data Ribbon --> Text to column

Select Delimited --> Next

Select Space --> Finish


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7) Change Case of Text in Excel

One question I get all the time is how to change the case of text in Excel. Some applications

require case-specific text to make a match with its data. Or you may just want to clean up

your data to make it consistent across the document. Excel provides three quick formulas

to accomplish the text-case change we are talking about.

Type Excel training in Cell A1 like eXcEL tRAINING

In cell B1 type=PROPER(A1) will return Excel Training

In cell C1 type=UPPER(A1) will return EXCEL TRAINING

In cell D1 type=LOWER(A1) will return excel training

It’s that easy. Just add this formula to an adjacent cell in Excel and watch your text’s case be

instantly updated without manually changing each cell.

And finally you have to fix the data in the original column.

So copy the calculated column (column in which you have added formula)

Select the main column.

Then right click Paste Option / Values OR Ctrl Alt V -- Shortcut of Paste Special

Lastly delete or erase your formula column.


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8) Protect worksheet - Protecting your data from modifying

To prevent a user from accidentally or deliberately changing, moving, or deleting important

data from a worksheet or workbook, you can protect certain worksheet or workbook

elements, with or without a password

Excel passwords can be up to 255 letters, numbers, spaces, and symbols. You must type

uppercase and lowercase letters correctly when you set and enter passwords.).

On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click Protect Sheet .


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9) Protect workbook - Protecting your sheet from deletion

You can lock the structure of a workbook, which prevents users from adding or deleting

worksheets or from displaying hidden worksheets. You can also prevent users from

changing the size or position of worksheet windows. Workbook structure and window

protection applies to the whole workbook.

On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click Protect Workbook .


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10) Protect your excel file with password while opening

By using the protection you can prevent user from opening your file

To protect your Excel 2010 spreadsheet, use the following steps.

In an open spreadsheet, click the File tab. The Backstage view opens.

In the Backstage view, click Info.

In Permissions, click Protect Workbook. The following options appear:

The following image is an example of the Protect Workbook options.


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11) Pin Documents, Workbooks to the Recent File List in Excel

You can pin documents to the recent file list in Excel 2007 and above versions so that they

stay on the list and are easily found.

Steps in Excel 2007:

Select the Office button to see the list of Recent Documents.

Click the gray pin next to a document and the pin turns green and “pins” the

document to the list.

It’s good for a document that you used frequently

Steps in Excel 2010:

Select the File menu then select Recent and you can see the recently used files &

folders. When you click a pin in either list, it turns blue AND moves to the top of the

list.


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12) Compare 2 Excel Files using View side by side Mode

Many times we have 2 or more workbooks with same column heading but different data.

We want to compare both and see how they differ. Here you can you View side by side

mode in Excel.

If you enable Synchronous Scrolling both the documents will scroll together.


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13) Working with several Excel files everyday?

Use workspace feature

If you work with multiple Excel workbooks every day, and have to open all the Excel files

daily to work on them, then here is a handy tip.

1. Open all the files you frequently use together.

2. Arrange them (Horizontally / Vertically)

3. Go to View ribbon and click on Save Workspace (Save on Desktop)

4. Give a name to your workspace

5. Now, whenever you need to open all these files together, just double click on

workspace file which you have saved.

6. You are done!

Workspace saves not just file collection, but also window layouts.

That means, if you like to arrange your Excel windows in a specific fashion,

you can save this arrangement too.

However, it will not preserve the zoom. i.e., if you save the workbooks with different zoom

levels (75% for one, 85% for the second and 90% for the third) to show at the time of

opening. It will open with 100% zoom only.

Save a workspace no longer available in Excel 2013


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14) Use Text Format to Preserve Leading Zeros in Excel

When you enter numbers like 00072 or 072.430 or 45.32400 in your Excel sheet, you would

see that Excel automatically removes starting zeros and trailing zeros (after decimal

point).However sometime, we want 00072, not 72. Then what?

Here is the quick method, use TEXT format instead of number format.

Select the cells where you are going to enter these numbers, from Home Ribbon>

Number area, select Text as cell type.

Excel will now treat any value you enter as Text, not as number.

So when you type 0072, it will appear as 0072, exactly same.

Calculation will not work as numbers are converted into the text


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15) Use fixed number of zeros in the starting of number

If you want the number to show up in 6 digits (with leading 0s if needed),

you can use the cell format code 000000

Steps:

Select the cells in which you have numbers and press Ctrl 1

From Number tab choose Custom

Enter the format code as 000000


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16) Shortcuts (Select/Insert/Delete/Hide& Unhide rows, cols & sheets)

Sr. Action Shortcut

1 Select Row Shift Space

2 Select Column Ctrl Space

3 Insert Row / Column Ctrl +

4 Delete Row / Column Ctrl -

5 Hide Row Ctrl 9

6 Unhide Row Ctrl Shift 9

7 Hide Column Ctrl 0

8 Unhide Column Ctrl Shift 0 (If now working, right click & unhide)

9 Insert Sheet Shift F11

10 Delete Sheet Alt H D S

11 Rename Sheet Alt H O R


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17) Quick Filtering

To filter unnecessary data in your columns so that you can better view the required

information only.

Select the cell in which you wish to filter.

Right click on that cell Filter Filter by Selected Cell’s value


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18) Creating drop down in cells for Region / Country / City orTeam

Steps:

1) Select the cells where you wish to create the Drop downs.

2) Select Data RibbonData Validation Settings In Allow -- Select List

In Source either type Region names separated by commas or select the range in

which details are already typed.

Note:

If its excel 2010 and above then we can also select the drop down list data from another

sheet, else we have to create the named range if it's lower version.

After creating name range of the data, in Allow List, Source will be =region

Ctrl Shift F3 is the shortcut of creating Name Range


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19) Shortcuts (Alignments / Borders / Sorting /Filtering / Hide/ Unhide Ribbons)

Sr. Action Shortcut

1 Align Left Alt H A L

2 Align Right Alt H A R

3 Align Center Alt H A C

4 Align Top Alt H A T

5 Align Middle Alt H A M

6 Align Bottom Alt H A B

7 Add Border Alt H B A

8 Remove Border Alt H B N

9 Outside Thick Border Alt H B T

10 Sorting Alt D S

11 Filtering Ctrl Shift L

12 Hide / Unhide Ribbon Ctrl F1


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20) Removing extra spaces for the sentence (TRIM)

If you are importing data into MS Excel from other applications, you sometime get extra

spaces in the starting or ending of the word, how do you remove that quickly.

Use Trim function

Trim function removes all spaces from text except for single spaces between words.


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Ramzan Rajani Email ramzanrajani@yahoo com Web ramzanrajani com 21

Contact

Email [email protected]

Website www.ramzanrajani.com

Mobile (India, Mumbai) +(91) 9920117286

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Thank you for your time. I hope you have learned something useful!

If you would like to plan Excel Advance training in your company,

feel free to write / call me on the above given details.

Ramzan Rajani is a corporate trainer & IT consultant serving local and international clients.

His depth of knowledge, unique style and personal touch creates high quality training impact.

He has extensive experience in creating templates, report automation, designing complex

Excel and Access applications as well as sophisticated Word documents, high end powerpoint

presentations & Excel Dashboards.

He has led hundreds of Microsoft Office corporate training sessions, from beginner to

advanced level, including Macros & Dashboard trainings across India, UAE (Dubai) &

North Africa.

In recognition he has received the Microsoft Office Specialist & Microsoft Certified Trainer

(MCT) certificates.

You can find a wide variety of Excel tips and tutorials from him on many websites
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.ramzanrajani.com/http://www.ramzanrajani.com/http://www.facebook.com/ramzan.rajanihttp://www.facebook.com/ramzan.rajanihttp://www.facebook.com/ramzan.rajanihttp://www.ramzanrajani.com/mailto:[email protected]