Fat Fingers on the Space Bar – A Conditional Formatting Example

I had the distinct pleasure of helping a colleague this week, because he fat-fingered the space bar whilst entering data in a spreadsheet then couldn’t figure out why there were #VALUE! errors on the Pivot Report. I used some conditional formatting to solve the problem and save the day. But to be fair, data entry …

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How to Quickly Convert 1904 Dates to the 1900 Date System in Excel

Microsoft Excel’s handling of dates is a critical feature for accurate data management. However, discrepancies between the 1900 and 1904 date systems can lead to confusion and errors. This comprehensive guide will help you understand these systems and provide step-by-step instructions for adjusting dates correctly.

Use Formula Auditing to Help Explain Formulas Excel

When you need to present a complicated spreadsheet, the Formula Auditing feature in Excel visually helps to explain formula relationships. You can easily trace formula precedents or dependents. Think of precedents as “what comes before” or the inputs to a formula. If you need to show a formula precedent select a cell with a formula, …

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Documentation for VBA in Excel

A long time ago, in a far-away classroom I was seemingly forced to write copious amounts of documentation in a FORTRAN class just for a few lines of code. It didn’t help that I was just learning how to keyboard (type) and that I didn’t understand why pseudo code was also required by my nameless, …

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Sorting with Custom Lists in Excel

Every once in a while I come across a sorting problem where a column of data needs to be sorted in a manner not consistent with ascending or descending order. Thankfully, Excel allows the sort order to come from a Custom List. As an example I have some data with Date, Name, and Type as …

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A Woopra Chat About Excel

I use the Woopra desktop app to view live visitors to this WordPress blog. Visitors will see a Woopra window lurking about when I’m logged into my (free) Woopra account. One option is to initiate a chat session with me. My first chat happened the other day. The chat notice startled me, but I quickly …

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Excel 2011 Keyboard Shortcuts on Your Desktop

My frustration level is high with the learning curve associated with keyboard shortcuts in Excel 2011 so I decided to import them into a spreadsheet and found out that’s not happening. Since there’s more than one way to skin a cat (sorry cat lovers, just an expression) I decided to import them from the Office:Mac …

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