Category Archives: Intermediate

Intermediate level information

How to Remove Duplicates in Excel: An Easy Guide

In this article, I will show you how to remove duplicates in Excel. While having duplicate data can be useful sometimes, it can also make it more difficult to understand your data. I’ll use conditional formatting to find and highlight duplicate portions of data within Microsoft Excel. Review your duplicate content and decide if you want to remove them.

Remember that when you delete duplicate values, the duplicate data is permanently deleted from your records. Before you go forward with deleting the duplicate content, I highly recommend that you copy the original data over to another worksheet. This ensures that … Read the rest

How to Create a Drop Down List in Excel with Data Validation

Those wondering how to create a drop down list in Excel will be relieved to know that it is easier than it sounds. As you may already know, drop down lists make data entry a breeze. For example, if you have ever used such a menu for surveys, polls, and web forms, you know how convenient they are. As tech nerds, we’re happy that such an option exists within an Excel spreadsheet.

Adding a drop-down list to a cell or range using Data Validation is a simple matter. Data Validation is used to define restrictions on what data can or … Read the rest

how to alphabetize in excel

How to Alphabetize in Excel: Fast & Simple

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how to alphabetize in excel

One of Excel’s most important features is the ability it gives users to quickly and easily sort through data. With this said, learning how to alphabetize in Excel is critical. If you are not familiar with this skill, don’t worry too much. We will go over alphabetizing lists of strings, ordering numerical values, standard alphabetization, reverse alphabetization, and more. Using Excel we can properly organize data for our businesses or personal finances. Learn how to alphabetize in excel so it is easy to read and refer back to whenever necessary.

What is Excel?

If you are a complete newcomer, you … Read the rest

pv table

Pivot Tables (PV Table): Everything You Need to Know

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When working with Excel spreadsheets, it can be difficult to extract the information you need from large sets of data. Pivot Tables (pv table) offer a great way to quickly condense and analyze, and present your data, allowing you to make informed decisions in both your professional and personal life.

Pivot Tables allow you to effortlessly summarize large amounts of data into a simple format that’s easy to read and analyze. You can subtotal numeric data, sort information into subcategories, or create custom calculations and formulas to focus your results.

Here, we’re going to discuss everything that you need to … Read the rest

Time-Extract

Extract Time from a Date-Time Number in Excel

I have a worksheet that tracks start and stop times for different events throughout the day, all during the week. Sometimes I have to pull out the Time of Day, irrespective of the Date, with the TIME function.

The TIME function has three arguments: Hour, Minute, Second. I could use =TIME(11,30,0) in a cell to get 11:30 AM, but I want to convert a Date-Time number so let’s look at an example.

In cell C2 I have the Date-Time value 10/8/12 6:28:30 PM.

Date-Time Number

In cell B2 I enter the formula =TIME(HOUR(C2),MINUTE(C2), SECOND(C2)) to pull out the time value. … Read the rest

Extract a Date from a Date-Time Number in Excel

I recently saw a spreadsheet with the following function =LEFT(A2,8) where cell A2 was equal to 08/06/12 12:23 PM. The user was trying to extract the Date from the Date-Time value. The problem for me was that the LEFT function returns a “text” value. Excel is good at recognizing text values that look like dates, as Dates, but why not use a formula that returns a numeric value?

My reflex was to enter the following formula =DATE(YEAR(A2),MONTH(A2),DAY(A2)) and get a proper Date value. You can tell the difference because, with no cell formatting, a Text value is left-justified … Read the rest

Copy Symbol Image

Add Macro Button to the Toolbar in Excel 2011

You can add an icon to the toolbar in Excel 2011 for your Personal Workbook Macro. In an earlier post I created a short macro to imitate the Control+Home keyboard shortcut in Excel for Windows. You can add an icon to the toolbar to run that, or any other macro with a few quick steps.

  • Right click on the toolbar and select Customize Toolbars and Menus… then
  • Click the Commands tab, then
  • Scroll down and select Macros from the Categories pane, and
  • Drag the Custom Button with a smiley face to the toolbar, then
  • Click OK to get rid of
… Read the rest
Personal Macro Workbook GoHome Code

Control + Home in Excel for Mac

One of my all-time favorite keyboard shortcuts in Excel is CTRL+Home, but on a Mac there is no Home button. Hence a constant source of frustration these last two years.

I finally decided to do something about that and recently figured out a solution using VBA and the Personal Macro Workbook. But before I go straight to the answer, let me tell you how I got there.

My Journey

I knew that VBA was going to enter into the equation, so I started to record a macro on a Windows PC while using the Control+Home keyboard shortcut. What I … Read the rest

Horizontal Dynamic Dependent Drop Down List Example

A Dynamic Dependent Drop Down List with a Horizontal Table Reference

I received a comment asking if a dynamic dependent drop-down list in Excel could have a list where the “table headers were actually rows and not columns?” Since I’ve already detailed how this is done in the article mentioned above, I’ll keep this short. The screen shot below is what I’ll be referencing. At the end of the post I’ll give a link to the file I used.

Conditional Drop Down List (Excel)

Horizontal Dynamic Dependent Drop Down List Example

There are two named ranges,

    1. 1)

myCategoryH

    1. that refers to the range E1:E3 and

 

    1. 2)

myTableH

    that refers to range F1:G3.

A defined name, myItemListH, … Read the rest

How to Update a List or Range without OFFSET

I avoid the use of Volatile Functions, especially OFFSET, which is commonly used to update a list or range. They can slow down the operation of your workbook. For very large workbooks with lots of data, it can be significant and irksome.

Worksheet cells that use Data Validation for a drop-down list can simplify the input process, or be used to limit the available choices. But the list needs be expandable. Here are two primary ways to keep your data validation list automatically updated, without having to resort to using the OFFSET function.

Update Your List Range with VBA

… Read the rest

Select Excel’s Used Range on a Mac

I recently read a good blog post over at Contextures about selecting the actual used range on an Excel sheet, both manually and with VBA. However, using Excel on a Mac makes you keenly aware that there’s no Home button.

The used range on a worksheet starts with cell A1 and ends with the last used cell in the worksheet. This “last cell” is not always apparent, but easily found. Just use the keyboard shortcut CONTROL + G to bring up the Go To dialog box.

Go To dialog box
Click Special… which will bring up the Go To Special dialog box.
Go To Special dialog box
Select Last … Read the rest

Pay Periods and Funky PivotTable Controls

I like to use a PivotTable to figure out simple problems in Excel. So for this post I’m going to use Excel 2011 (Mac), where PivotTable controls look funky when compared to their Windows counterpart.

Since I get paid every two weeks, certain months in a year will contain three pay periods. Planning future vacations during these months isn’t a bad idea, so I’m going to look at pay periods for the next three years.

Add a Column of Dates

Two Week Pay PeriodsI’ll enter the first pay period, then create a formula that adds 14 days and copy it down to get … Read the rest

Fill Down a Formula with VBA

I commented on a post that brought to light, the fact that, using the cell fill-handle to “shoot” a formula down a column doesn’t always work when the adjacent column(s) have blank cells. So I decided to share some Excel VBA code that’s used to copy a formula down to the bottom of a column of data.

The situation is depicted below. Cell C2 is active, and has the formula =B2+A2. I want to copy it down to the rest of the column in this data range. However, cells B6 and B11 are empty, along with countless others below the … Read the rest

A Dynamic Dependent Drop Down List

A Dynamic Dependent Drop Down List in Excel

A Dynamic Dependent Drop Down ListThe other day I was reading a post over at the Contextures blog about Dynamic Dependent Excel Drop Downs and realized that using an Excel Table would provide an alternative method that is both simple and flexible. Tables are available in Excel versions 2007, 2010, and 2011.

In this post I’ll create a Table to hold the Category’s and Items, create three defined names using dynamic formulas, then use Data Validation to create two drop-down lists, the second being dependent upon the first.

Create at Reference Table

Here’s a Table with Category names in the header row and Items… Read the rest

Dynamic Table Reference with INDEX

Tables have structured data so you can easily use column references in formulas. But with the Table name AND column name, the reference can be rather lengthy and hard to understand at first glance.

As an alternative, you can simply create a dynamic column reference in a Table by using the INDEX function in a Defined Name.

First I will explain how the INDEX function works to capture a dynamic Table range, then I’ll create a Defined Name using the INDEX function, use it in a formula, and see what happens when things change.

The Dynamic INDEX

The syntax … Read the rest