Tuesday, 12 August 2014

Microsoft Excel: Some Helpful Tips

By Frankline Bell


Microsoft Excel is one of those programs that is far more versatile than many people believe. Certainly it allows you to enter and analyze data, but you also can use it for accounting, planning, tracking data, making calendars, creating a budget and much more. While many people know how to use the most basic features of Excel, here are a few cool tricks that you might not have known.

If you have entered many rows and columns of data but need to copy and paste it someplace else, such as another spreadsheet, most of us click, hold and drag to select all of the information. If you have a large amount of data, this can be time consuming. To skip that, just click inside the row and tap the shift key and the spacebar. This will highlight the whole row automatically, which you can then cut, copy or paste elsewhere.

When you need more that a single row or column highlighted and you need the whole spreadsheet, this is easy as well. Go up to the first cell and click. Now you hit the key at the top of your keyboard marked F8. Then you scroll down to the very last cell of data and click inside it. This will highlight your whole spreadsheet. If you just want to highlight one column, you begin by clicking the first cell in the column and then click the last cell in that column rather than clicking the first and last cells in the entire spreadsheet. To stop this particular function, simply tap that F8 key again.

One annoyance is that when you add a great deal of data and you start to move below about the 38th row, you lose the visibility of your header. That might be fine if you just have two or three columns of data, but if you are entering data into a large amount of columns, it is sometimes tough to remember which column is which. For this reason, it is nice to have the header visible all of the time.

You can create a second header that will appear all of the time. Go over to the right edge and find the scroll bar for the spreadsheet. Above that is an up arrow or triangle that is filled in, and above that is a box with a line in it. Place your cursor over this box and wait until the cursor looks like two up and down arrows with two lines in between arrows. Click and hold and a dark line will appear. Move this arrow down slightly and slowly and you will see a second header appear. Release the mouse and this header will stay in place and you will be able to see it the whole time you enter data, even after row 38.

Microsoft Excel offers hundreds of short-cuts and functions, including the ability sort data or filter data. To sort, you can go up to the Sort & Filter function on the Home tab. This allows you to sort alphabetically, reverse alphabetically or to create your own custom sort. You also can place a filter in order to view just one set of data at a time. The best way to learn about all of the functions of Excel is to click on the question mark in the blue circle that is located on the top right corner of your Excel spreadsheet. From here, you will be linked to the Excel Help system. You can ask questions, learn keyboard shortcuts and more.




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