Monthly Archives: August 2021

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Pasting into a Large Formatted Table

There is a quick way to do this

There are times when pasting to the bottom of an existing large, formatted table can take a few minutes to update. There is a quicker way.

When the formatted table is selected there is a Table Design (or Design) tab visible.

On the far left-hand side the Resize Table icon allows you to easily extend the range of the formatted.

You can amend the range and add sufficient rows to handle the new data in the dialog that opens.

When you paste into an existing formatted table (rather on the end of the table) you will find it will update a lot quicker.

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Keyboard Shortcut to Record a Macro

You need the Developer ribbon tab visible to record a macro, or do you?

This old-fashioned keyboard shortcut will open the record macro dialog. Pressed in sequence, not held down.

Alt T M R

You can also use the little icon next to the Ready at the bottom left corner of the screen.

Once you start recording the small square icon to stop recording appears in the same spot.

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Happy Birthday IBM PC

40 years old

The IBM PC was launched 12 August 1981 – 40 years ago – wow!

When I was looking at my first Excel articles I found this article from 20 years ago.

Its amazing that PC’s are roughly the same price these days.

I remember using an IBM PC at college in the early 80’s for word processing. Instead of using a typewriter for your assignments you could use the PC and printer.

You had to book times to use it because there were only two PC’s available and they were used 24 hours a day. There were dual floppy drives – one was for the operating system and one was for  data storage  – your files. You carried around a floppy drive with all your assignments on it.

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Excelling at Excel – Twenty Years Ago Today

My first article

My first article was published on 10 August 2001 in the Accountants Weekly magazine.

I have scanned the original article and it is shown below.

20 years later I thought I would update the 10 points from the article.

  1. The right mouse button is still a time saver and now has even more options. You can now Filter and Sort using the right click. Try right clicking the navigation icons on the left of the sheet tabs for a complete list of sheets. I drag with the right mouse button to copy formats only, or values only.
  2. Yes, I still use the Ctrl key to copy quickly. Try dragging a sheet tab with the mouse whilst holding the Ctrl key down – it copies the sheet – woohoo!
  3. Selecting multiple ranges with the Ctrl key and mouse is even better now. In the more recent Excel versions you can de-select ranges. In the old days you had to start from scratch if you wanted to change a selection.
  4. Toolbars are gone but the Quick Access Toolbar is customisable – see this post on that.
  5. Toolbars are out, but you can create your own ribbon tabs using Customize The Ribbon – right click the ribbon.
  6. Conditional Formatting (Home ribbon) now has lots more options and many built-in ones.
  7. Shift key – still lots of options with Shift.
  8. Double clicking – yes lots of time savers. Try double clicking the Format Painter (left side of Home ribbon) to apply formats multiple times. Press Esc to stop.
  9. Comments – now Comments have been re-badged as Notes and Comments are a new threaded commentary system.
  10. Paste Special – Ctrl + Alt + V opens Paste Special after copying.

When published all those years ago these tips applied to both Excel 97 and Excel 2000. We have come a long way since those days.

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