So far this year I’ve already talked with 3 people who have lost data because of hardware failure or malware attack, and another who was lucky enough to get their data back but spent a very nervous weekend waiting to hear if their IT person would be able to recover data from their dead computer. […]

Did you know that, with just a few clicks, Excel can add subtotals and a grand total to your lists? In order for it to work you do have to start out with your data formatted correctly. Logically, you’ll need to have the data in your list sorted by field you want to subtotal by. […]

If you’ve ever wanted to make notes on an Excel worksheet like you would on a printed report, you’re in luck. That’s exactly what the Insert Comment feature does. Simply right click on the cell you want to attach the comment to, and choose Insert Comment. A box that looks similar to a yellow sticky […]

Everyone knows how to apply formatting such as bold, italics, or color to a cell on an Excel worksheet. But did you know you can establish rules so that if certain conditions are met, the cell will automatically receive selected formatting? You can, and it’s called conditional formatting. Let’s look at a few examples. I’ll […]

The worksheets (or tabs) in an Excel workbook are a nearly indispensable tool for organizing data. (I know some of you remember when tabs were a new feature.) But how many times have you repeatedly jumped back and forth between tabs trying to compare information? There’s a much better way. You can actually show both […]

Many programs export data to CSV files (Comma Separated Values) because they are almost universally recognized. Excel can easily open a CSV file and automatically split into columns but there are some common problems you’ll run into when doing that. One of the most common problems is leading zeros. Zip codes (postal codes), invoice numbers, […]

Inserting and deleting columns in Excel is very easy. Simply click the arrow under the Insert button or Delete button on the Home tab of the ribbon and choose Rows or Columns (you can also insert or delete individual cells). When adding (inserting) rows, the row that your cursor is in will be moved down […]

Everyone uses Excel a little bit differently, so a trick that’s a big time saver for one, may not do much for someone else. But here are three (in no particular order) that I find myself using frequently. If your favorite didn’t make the list, I’d love to hear it. Ctrl+Home or Ctrl+End moves you […]

One of the most valuable features when analyzing data in Excel is the ability to filter your data in place. The hours of work that it has saved me made me choose AutoFilter as the Excel tip for my first newsletter almost 6 years ago. But I decided it was worth revisiting since more than half […]

If you have a list in Excel, you may need to remove duplicate entries from that list. You could sort your list and manually delete the duplicates, but Excel has an easier way. On the Data tab of the ribbon, you’ll find a Remove Duplicates button in the Data Tools section. The word “remove” tells […]