Learn To Use Excel Like A Pro

Within minutes of opening this ebook you’ll be saying, ‘WOW! I didn’t know I could do that in Excel !’

If you’re anything like me, then you are probably pulling your hair out struggling to get your Excel projects finished on time.

Your spreadsheets are getting bigger and more demanding but you don’t know the right shortcuts. So it takes longer and longer to get things done.

Believe me, I know exactly what it’s like when the boss asks for a report ASAP. You think to yourself, “What, does he think I’m magic? Does he expect me to work late again to get that report finished?”

You’ve heard about of all the fantastic things that Excel can do and how it’s the most widely used software program in business today. But still, you haven’t been given the training you need. Sure, there are Excel tutorials available on the internet, but you have to find them first, and many aren’t worth the time it takes to read them!

So, you come home and spend hours of your own personal time on the internet searching for all of these amazing Excel tips and tricks that you know could save you hours of time and frustration. Most often, it’s just wasted time.

You might already have discovered a few great tips – ones that allow you to do a task in seconds that used to take you an hour or more. I’ll bet you’ve already discovered a few tricks that make you say “WOW!!” the first time you used them.

Now you can have 101 of these amazing time-saving tips in your hands in just a few minutes from now!

Once you begin reading this ebook, you will start to realize that many of Microsoft Excel’s best secrets, that could have been saving you so much time and frustration, have been hiding right under your nose.

These little-known secrets will catapult your skills and productivity far ahead of anything you have ever thought possible.

“100% Money Back Guarantee”

If the tips in this ebook don’t significantly improve your productivity in Excel AND significantly improve your enjoyment of Excel, then just send me an email within 60 days and I’ll instantly refund your money. No questions asked.

Free Bonus: 26 page ebook – “Secrets Of Microsoft Word”

“The first few tips blew me away…I’m in Excel heaven”

Francis: I just downloaded my copy of your new ebook, ’101 Tips for the Excel Addict’ and it is marvelous!! The first few tips blew me away. If the rest are this good or better, I’m in ‘Excel heaven’. Thanks so much and keep ‘em coming.

Michael P.

Information Technology (IT) Coordinator

These Tips Can Quickly and Dramatically Boost Your Productivity in Excel.

VBA Excel

Microsoft VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is a computer language based on Microsoft Visual Basic. In the Excel VBA context, it allows you to write code that automatically performs actions on a workbook, its worksheets and their columns, rows and individual cells. To write this code you can use a programming environment called Microsoft Visual Basic that ships with Microsoft Excel. This environment provides all the features you need to automate actions on a workbook.

To start writing VBA Excel, you will need to open the Microsoft VBA editor. Click the Developer tab > Visual Basic. If you can’t see the Developer tab, click the Office Button > Excel Options, and check the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon option.

You will notice the following 3 main windows:

• Project Window – shows a list of code segments available to your worksheet
• Properties window – shows the characteristics of the selected object
• Work Area – this is the area where your code is displyed

VBA Excel Modules

A module is simply a ‘unit’ of code. When you use VBA in Excel and work on a worksheet, a default module is automatically allocated for it. You can also create modules that are independent of worksheets. To create a module in the VBA Excel editor, click Insert > Module.

The Immediate Window

To enable you to test your code, Microsoft VBA provides a special window called the Immediate Window. To display the Immediate Window click View Immediate Window or press Ctrl-G. You can close this window at any time by clicking the ‘X’ in the top right.

Templates – A Quick Way Of Creating New Workbooks

To create a new workbook based on a template, click the Office button > New, and select a template category on the left of the New Workbook window. Categories to choose from are:

Blank and Recent

Use the blank template to create a workbook from scratch. There is no pre-defined formatting. Templates that you’ve recently used are also displayed here.

Installed Templates

Templates that are installed on your hard drive.

My Templates

Templates that you’ve created previously.

New From Existing

Although not strictly a template, you can create a new workbook based on an existing one. In this case the existing workbook behaves like a template.

Microsoft Office Online

If you have an internet connection, you can download templates from teh Microsoft web site. The Microsoft Online category is broken up into sub categories.

When you select a category, thumbnails representing all templates within that category are displayed in the main window. If you then click to select one, its preview is displayed to the right. This allows you to quickly sample several templates before committing to creating your new workbook. When you have found a template you are happy to use, click Create. If you have chosen a template from the Microsoft Office Online categories, the Create button is replaced by a Download button, and you will need an internet connection to download the template before you can use it.

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After you download a template from Microsoft Office Online, that template is available in the My Templates category for future use. Some

Even though you might not find a template that meets your requirements exactly, it is often quicker to base your new workbook on the closest fitting template and then amend it. If you do this, you may decide to…

Create Your Own Template

After hacking your workbook to the precise shape you want, you may decide that it’s so good you’ll use it again in the future. This is where saving it as a template is a good option. To do this, click the Office Button > Save As > Other Formats, and change the Save as type selection to Excel Template (*.xltx). Notice that Excel 2007 templates have the extension .xltx whereas bog standard Excel workbooks have the .xlsx extension. Navigate to where on your hard drive you want to save your spangly new template, give it a name and click Save. You’ve just saved yourself a whole heap of time. Previous versions of Microsoft Excel use the .xlt extension for templates.

Modifying A Template

If an existing template is not quite right, you can change it and resave it. To do this first of all open the template by clicking the Office Button > Open, and navigate to where the template is. Click Open and make your changes. When your changes are complete, simply save teh template in the usual fashion (e.g. Ctrl-S).

Formatting In Excel 2007

Styles are used to alter the formatting of individual cells or a range of cells, whereas themes affect the styling of entire worksheets. But why bother styling your worksheet? Formatting is useful for helping the reader to read and understand the data in your workbook. The formatting tools in Excel 2007 are available in three locations:

On the home tab of the ribbon

You have different options here. You can manually change the individual style elements like font, colour etc in the Font, Alignment and Number groups or you can apply pre-prepared styles that come with Excel. These are available in the Styles group when you click the Cell Styles button, and are a quick way to apply stylish formatting. On clicking the Cell Styles button a gallery of thumbnails representing each style is displayed. If the thumbnails don’t give you a detailed enough picture, Live previews are also available here; hover over a style to see how your cells would appear if this formatting option was applied. When you move the cursor away, the live preview is removed.

On the mini toolbar that appears when you right click a cell

When you select cells and then right click on them a shortcut menu appears with the mini toolbar above it. After using a formatting tool, the shortcut menu disappears but the mini toolbar remains for you to select more formatting tools.

In the Format Cells dialog box.

The dialog box launcher is the small button with the diagonal arrow that can be found in the bottom right of a group of commands. Clicking the dialog box launcher in any of the Font, Alignment and Number groups will display the Format Cells dialog box. The tab corresponding to the group you used will be active in the window. The format cells dialog box contains tabs to control formatting for Number, Alignment, Font, Border, Patterns and Protection (see below).

Applying Styles In Excel 2007

Select a cell or range of cells and then apply the desired formatting using one of the methods outlined above.

Saving Your Style

If after formatting some cells you decide that you might want to use that particular formatting again, you can save it as a new style. Select the cells again and click Home > Styles > Cell Styles > New Cell Style.

In the New Cell Style window that is displayed, name the style and then check the boxes next to the formatting elements you want to save. Next time you click on the Cell Styles button you will see your new style ready for use in the Custom category.

To remove any custom styles from the gallery, go into Cell Styles again, right click on the style and select Delete. Solid gone. You can also modify your style by following the previous steps but instead of selecting Delete, select Modify and then click Format. The Format Cells window is then presented for you to make your changes.

Using Multiple Formatting Styles In A Single Cell

To apply formatting to individual characters in the text of a cell, first of all double click on the cell to switch to edit mode. You can then select individual cells by clicking and dragging over them or by holding down shift and using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Once your characters are selected, apply formatting as explained above.

Why Would You Need To Protect A Workbook?

There may be times when you want to keep information out of sight and safe from modification. Imagine, for example, a worksheet that contains static data that is used in calculations. In this situation it’s advisable to hide and/or protect the data (and the formulas used, for that matter). It would not useful to the viewer to see this data, as it’s only used behind the scenes, and any amendments made to it may corrupt the integrity of the calculations that use it. Here, it makes sense to both hide and protect. To this end, you can hide windows, individual worksheets or whole workbooks.

Hiding Workbooks

There may be times when you want to have several workbooks open and their information available so that Excel may use it. If you don’t feel the need to have this information clutter up your screen you can hide the workbooks that you don’t need by clicking View > Window > Hide in the appropriate workbook.

The workbook is hidden and its filename is removed from Switch Windows menu on the View tab. Once a workbook is hidden, the unhide button becomes available, and is displayed on all open workbooks. But suppose you have hidden several workbooks and you now click the Unhide button. How does Excel know which workbook to unhide? It doesn’t, so it presents a dialog box for you to select the one you want to unhide. In this dialog box, all hidden workbooks are presented.

A word of warning! If you save a workbook whilst it is hidden, the next time you open it you won’t see it. This can be very confusing, but is easy to rectify by clicking View > Window > Unhide (as we’ve already seen).

Protecting Worksheets

To prevent yourself or others from accidentally changing formulas or other data, you might want to protect your worksheet. To do this, click Review > Changes > Protect Sheet. In the Protect Sheet dialog box, tell Excel what kind of restrictions you want to put in place. For example, the default restrictions allow users to select locked and unlocked cells but prevent users from formatting cells, formatting columns etc. If the action appears in the dialog box, you can allow or restrict users’ access to it.

Note that you can enter a password here to password protect your worksheet. Doing so will force the user to enter the password to unprotect the worksheet.

Unlocking Cells

Every cell has a locked attribute that determines whether you can update its contents when the worksheet is protected. When you protect a worksheet, all cells become locked. Should you need to make some cells available for update, you can do this by first changing the locked attribute. Select the cell or range of cells you need and then right click > Format Cells > Protection, and then uncheck the Locked check box. Click OK. Note that this has to be performed before you protect the worksheet.

On the Protection tab there is also a Hidden checkbox. If you check this box and then protect the worksheet, the contents of the selected cell still remain visible in the worksheet, but don’t appear in the formula bar. Hiding cells this way will prevent users from seeing any formulas that you want to keep hidden. Again, this action needs to be performed before you protect the worksheet.

If you try and change the contents of a locked cell once the worksheet is protected, the following dialog box is displayed, preventing you from doing so.

To remove the worksheet’s protection, click Review > Changes > Unprotect Sheet. If the worksheet was protected with a password you will need to enter that password now to unprotect it.

Protecting Workbooks

There are three ways you can protect a workbook:

• require entry of a password to open the workbook
• prevent structural changes to the workbook
• prevent the resizing and repositioning of windows within the workbook

Password Protection

To password protect a workbook, click the Office Button > Prepare > Encrypt Document. Enter the password in the Encrypt Document dialog box. As with all password protection, you will need to confirm the password. After the workbook has been saved, the password will need to be entered to open it again.

Prevent Structural Changes To The Workbook

Structural changes include the addition, deletion, movement, hiding or unhiding of worksheets within a workbook. To protect a workbook from these kinds of changes, click Review > Changes > Protect Workbook > Protect Structure and Windows. In the Protect Structure and Windows dialog box ensure that Structure is checked and assign a password if required. Similar steps need to be followed when unprotecting the workbook’s structure: click Review > Changes > Protect Workbook > Protect Structure and Windows. You will need to enter a password if a password was previously assigned.

Protecting Workbook Windows

To protect the size and location of windows in a workbook, click Review > Changes > Protect Workbook. In the Protect Structure and Windows dialog box (see previous image), ensure that Windows is checked. To remove this protection, click Review > Changes > Protect Workbook > Protect Structure and Windows

Making Cells Active

Before you can type data into a cell, you need to make it active. You can make a cell active by clicking directly in it or by moving the active cell left, right, up and down with the arrow keys on your keyboard. When you make a cell active, it becomes highlighted with a black border; start typing and the data is inserted into the active cell. If you press enter after you’ve finished typing data into that cell, the cell below becomes active. You’ll also notice that either the cell reference or the cell’s name appears in the name box (see image below) in the top left of the worksheet.

The Data In The Cell

If you want to abandon the data you are currently typing into a cell before moving to another cell, pressing escape will reinstate the original contents of that cell. Sometimes, the data you are entering into a cell seems to spill into the next cell along. Don’t worry about this; the content is only contained in the active cell. If you want the column to expand to fit the rather large contents of that cell, double click on the right column separator in the heading.

The AutoComplete Facility

If you move to the cell below and start typing exactly the same thing, Excel notices this and autocompletes it for you. This isn’t always what you want though, so you can press enter to accept the autocompletion or just carry on typing your data. You can turn autocomplete off by clicking the Office Button > Excel Options > Advanced, and uncheck Enable AutoComplete for cell values.

Cell Reference

Cells are referenced by their column and row locations. Cell G11 is the cell found at the intersection of colum G with row 11. You can also assign names to cells by making the required cell active and then clicking in the name box to type the name.

If you have a large worksheet, navigating using this method becomes unwieldy and slow. Instead, you can press F5 and use the Go To dialogie box. In this dialogue box, a history of previous go tos you have performed is displayed. You can either type in a new cell reference, or highlight a previously used one and then click enter. The selected cell becomes active.

As well as using the arrow keys to move one cell at a time in the appropriate direction, you can use the following shortcuts to navigate further afield. The descriptions may sound confusing, but if you spend a couple of minutes trying them out, you’ll easily get to grips with them.

Assigning Names To Cells

Names are far easier to remember than cell addresses, so it makes sense to assign a descriptive name to cells where possible. You can use a cell’s name to reference it in a formula you are creating, or to navigate to that cell by using its name. Also, the use of cell names in forumulas makes them easier to understand.

Methods Of Naming Cells

Excel 2007 provides several ways of naming cells:

The Name Dialog Box

Select a cell or range of cells by clicking and dragging over them and click Formulas > Defined Names > Define Name. In the New Name dialog box that is presented, type in the name of the cells. Using the Scope drop down list you can tell Excel whether the name should be valid for the current workbook or only a particular sheet within the workbook. Enter any comments that you think would help. The Refers to box details what cell range you selected.

The Name Box

A quicker way to assign a name is to select the required cells and then simply type the name into the name box (to the left of the formula bar). Press the enter key to complete the assignation. You can also use the name to jump to a previously named cell or range by clicking on its down arrow to display teh drop down list. Select a name and the corresponding cells become active.

Create From Selection

You can use the text in adjacent cells to name those cells. For example imagine that you have some friends’ names running across a row. Select the cells that contain the names and also the cells immediately below them. Click Formulas > Defined Names > Create From Selection. Excel has a good idea about which cells contain the names and checks appropriate box for top row, left column, bottom row or right column, but you can change this selection manually.

If the selected cells contain text that would be invalid as a name (for example text that contains a blank space), Excel will modify the name. “gross sales” would become “gross_sales”. Additionally, if creating names from a selection would result in a duplication of already existing names Excel will issue a confirmation dialog asking whether you want to replace the existing definition. The choice is yours.

Rules To Follow When Naming Cells

You must ensure that the following rules are adhered to when assigning names to cells:

• Names cannot contain spaces
• Names cannot begin with a number
• Symbols are not allowed – with the exception of ‘_’ and ‘.’
• The length of a name is limited to 255 characters

Mail Merge Overview

To perform a mail merge you need a letter that will be sent out to different recipients and you need a list of those recipients. The list of recipients is created in Excel, whilst the letter and merge are created in Word. Mail merges are a real time saver if you plan to send out a series of letters to the same people, as you only need to prepare the recipient list once. It saves you having to type out each letter with each person’s details each time, as the mail merge inserts that person’s details in places that you indicate. Excel is just one program that you can use to handle your recipients; you can also use Microsoft Access.

Create The Recipient List In Excel

Create a list in Excel of people who are to receive your letter. Make sure that no rows are missing, so that the data is continuous. Here is a sample of a worksheet you could use to hold those personal details.

As far as the mail merge goes, Excel’s work is done. We must now create a letter in Microsoft Word and merge it with the Excel spreadsheet.

Create The Maile Merge Letter In Word

The next step is to tell Word who should receive our letter. We’re going to use the Mail Merge Wizard in Word to do this, so click Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Start Mail Merge > Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard. Ensure that Letters is selected on teh right and click Next: Starting document. Leave Use the current document selected (we will create the letter in this document later) and then click Next: Select recipients. Select Use an existing list is selected and click browse. Navigate to where the recipient Excel spreadsheet is, select it and then in the Select Table dialogue box select the worksheet that contains the address details.

If you used column headings in the Excel spreadsheet, ensure that the First row of data contains column headings is selected, otherwise deselect it. Click OK. The Mail Merge Recipients dialogue box is then presented.

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If there are any addresses you don’t want to mail, then deselect them in the Mail Merge Recipients dialogue box. Clicdk OK and then click Next: Write your letter to start composing the letter you will mail out. Write the letter, leaving gaps where you will later insert personal information. For example, you would leave a gap after “Dear” at the start of the letter. Once the letter is finished, position the cursor in one of the gaps left for recipient information and click More Items on the right. Ensure that Database Fields is selected and select the piece of information you need from the list.

On clicking Insert, that piece of personal data is inserted into the document where the cursor is positioned. When you have added all the personal information, click Next: Preview your letters. Here is your chance to review the letter you have just created, complete with sample personal information from the first recipient. If you need to make any adjustments to the letter, click Previous: Write your letter, and if not click Next: Complete the merge.

Now it’s time to print the merged letters, so click Print. When the Merge to Printer dialogue box is presented, you can choose which recipients to print.

In this dialogue box you can select all recipients, only the current recipient or you can select a range of recipients.

Long Tables With Many Columns

By default, when you scroll down a table of data, the colun headings you so lovingly crafted will disappear off the screen. If you have a small table with only a few columns, it will probably be easy to remember what data is held in each column and so it doesn’t matter that you can’t see those column headings. On the other hand, if you have a large table that has many columns, without those headings to remind you, you may very soon forget which column is which. This is where freezing panes comes in. When you freeze panes in Excel, the headings will remain fixed in place while the data scrolls.

How To Freeze Panes

Firstly, you don’t need to work on data that has been converted to a table to freeze panes, although in this example I am. Click View > Window > Freeze Panes. You get three options:

We’ll look at the option to Freeze Top Row first as that’s the most simple to understand. Column headings are often displayed in the top row, which is why freezing the top row is a popular option. When you choose this option, a discrete line appears beneath the top row, indicating the frozen region. When you scroll downwards, the top row will always be displayed where it currently is.

To remove the frozen panes, click the same Freeze Panes button again but this time select Unfreeze Panes. This unfreezes all rows and columns.

It may be that you have column headings that span more than one row, or a even row headings. These can all be frozen by making a carefully chosen cell active and then choosing the Freeze Panes option from the Freeze Panes menu. For example, consider the following example.

If the table of data was wider, so that you had to scroll horizontally, freezing the two leftmost columns in addition to the top row would be a good idea. Then as you scrolled right, you would still be able to see the year and financial period that the data related to, as they would be frozen in place. To freeze the top row and two leftmost columns, you must first of all make the cell active whose top left corner rests at the intersection of the bottom of the row and right edge of the column you want to freeze. It’s easier to show you!

How To View Spreadsheets Without Excel 2007

If you don’t have Microsoft Excel 2007 installed, but you need to view an Excel spreadsheet, all is not lost. Enter Excel Viewer 2007. With this utility you can open, view and print Excel spreadsheets. Additionally, you can copy data from the excel spreadsheet to other applications. I’ve tested Excel Viewer successfully on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Window 7 with no problems.

Installing Excel Viewer 2007 is simple: download it here and then run the install program. Once installed, you should see the program when you click Start > All Programs. When you run Excel Viewer, you are immediately taken to the File Open dialogue box where you must navigate to and then select the Excel spreadsheet you want to view.

When the spreadsheet opens, you’ll see a cutdown version of the Excel 2007 Ribbon. This is because all the commands related to editing the spreadsheet have been removed: you are able to view and print the spreadsheet only.

As you can see, there is a limited number of tabs offering the following categories:

• Office Document – open and print functions.
• Edit – don’t be fooled, you can’t actually edit the spreadsheet. However, you can copy data, find and go to.
• Page Setip – allows you te set up page level properties such as orientation (portrait or landscape), and the print area.
• Window – use this to jump to other Excel 2007 spreadsheets you have open.

When tabbing through your open sessions (alt-tab) the icon representing Excel Viewer is slightly different to the standard one representing Excel 2007. Because only enquiry functiionality is available, a pair of glasses (to view!) appears beneath the standard Excel icon.

Another place where functionality is restricted is the Office button menu. Here, you can only open spreadsheets, print them, check for updates to the Excel Viewer and close documents. Like Excel 2007, the right hand pane displays recently opened documents. Interestingly, the Open for Editing command will open the spreadsheet in Excel 2007 (not the viewer) if you have it installed. Taking this option will close the spreadsheet in the viewer program and open it in Excel itself.