Do you get tired of adjusting column widths to fit what you think is your longest entry only to discover when you scroll down that the column needs to be wider? Excel makes it easy to adjust your columns widths or row heights to match your data. Let’s start with the simplest example. If you […]

Last month I talked about how to use Transpose to copy data from a row and paste it into a column or vice versa. This month we’ll look at a fairly new Excel function ToCol() that can pull data from several adjacent rows and columns and combine it into one column. (There’s also a ToRow() […]

Have you ever wished you had more space between columns on a spreadsheet, or between the cell contents and the cell border? Some people resort to inserting narrow empty columns between columns of data. But that interferes with the use of timesavers like keyboard navigation shortcuts or Fill Right, and doesn’t help if you’re using […]

You have probably all seen Excel formulas that result in an error such as #DIV/0!, #N/A, #NAME?, #NULL!, #NUM!, #REF!, or #VALUE!. Usually they indicate that you need to correct something in your formula or the data it references. But sometimes the condition that produces the error is unavoidable. In those cases not only does […]

When you copy and paste cells on a spreadsheet, do you get tired of having to resize the columns where you pasted the cells?  There are two good ways to copy the column widths along with your data. Copying entire columns is the fastest and easiest way to copy contents and formatting at the same […]

You probably know that you can use the Sum function to add up a range of cells. But did you know that you can specify a range that covers multiple tabs (worksheets) in your Excel workbook? EXAMPLE Let’s say you have a workbook that lists the month’s sales of each of your products. There is […]

You can use number formats, such as the comma style or currency style, or the increase/decrease decimals buttons to control how many decimals Excel displays. These are convenient and can be very useful, but they can also lead to some embarrassing problems in how your numbers display. For example if you have 1.254 in cell […]

This last installment on Excel’s Fill command explains how you can use it to distribute a long string of text evenly over multiple rows.

Last month we talked about how to use Excel’s Autofill feature to automatically fill in a series of words (like days of the week) or numbers. In order for the feature to work Excel needs to be able to recognize the series. So this month I want to show you how you can create your […]

Excel’s Fill command lets you fill an adjacent group of cells with the same text or numbers, or with text or numbers that form a series. In its simplest form it’s like a faster version of copy and paste. For example, enter a name in cell A1, then highlight cells A1 through A5 and press […]