I typically turn gridlines off on my sheets and then use borders for the lines. I have added icons to my Quick Access Toolbar to speed up the process.
Category Archives: Excel Blog
Reading Books Online – legally
CPA Australia option
Seeing we may be stuck at home for a while here is a suggestion regarding reading books online. If you are a member of CPA Australia you can read certain books online for free.
New Dynamic Array Function SEQUENCE
Part One - its all about spilling
Dynamic arrays have the potential to change the way Excel spreadsheets are created. They were released in the January 2020 wave of updates to the Office 365 subscription version.
Issue with extracting a sheet name in Excel
Single sheet file issue
I wrote about a formula to extract the sheet name many years ago, but I just found an issue with it. Click here to see older blog post.
Negative Time in Excel
Party like its 1904
It is possible, but it involves a setting change that comes with a warning.
Weeks and days calculation in Excel
In Excel we tend to work in years, months or days. There may be times when you want to work in weeks.
Getting Wild About XLOOKUP
Part Four - you can use wildcards!
Being able to use wildcard characters like * and ? in searches is something we are used to having. Now XLOOKUP allows you to do those types of searches in Excel.
Excel XLOOKUP Actually Looks Down
Part Three - but things are looking up
Did you know that VLOOKUP actually looks down? That’s right, it finds the first entry from the top down. The default XLOOKUP also looks down, but can start from the bottom and look up.
Excel XLOOKUP Flexibility
Part two
The INDEX and OFFSET functions can return a reference to a cell, something VLOOKUP can’t do. XLOOKUP can return a cell reference, let’s see one way to use it.
New XLOOKUP Function in Excel
Part One
It’s finally here, well it is if you have the monthly update cycle of the subscription version of Excel.
Another plural technique for Excel
Out of LEFT field
Recently I found an interesting way to handle plurals in Jordan Goldmeier’s book on dashboards.
Data Validation and Conditional Formats in Excel
Part Two - a good combination
In my previous post I showed how to have a flexible data validation and how to validate it. This post will look at adding conditional formats to inputs and validations.
Validating Data Validation in Excel
Part One
The most common type of Data Validation in Excel is a drop down list. In the example below I allow the user to select a year, then a month (using a drop down) and then enter a valid day in the month.
Hyperlinking to a Cell in Another Excel File
It is possible
You can create a hyperlink to another Excel file in Excel but you can’t control what sheet or cell will be active. Well you can actually, but you need to know how.
Grouping Icon Above Group Rows in Excel
Finding a well hidden setting
The default setting is to have the grouping icon below the grouped rows. But you can switch things and have the icon at the top of the grouped rows.
Grouping Measures in Power BI
Its in the Model View
It is considered best practice to use Measures for all your values in Power BI reports and dashboards. One way to make it easier to find Measures is to group them together.
Creating Groups for Power Queries in Excel
Put some order in your queries
Once you start to use Power Query you may find yourself with quite a few queries in the one file. To make it easier to control them you can use groups to keep similar queries together.
Excel Sort within a Sort
Colour by numbers
Did you know you can sort by colour in Excel? Did you know you can sort ascending or descending within that colour? I was asked a question in a recent webinar and in answering I found out that you can sort within a sort.
Applying a standard custom format in Excel
Styles to the rescue
One of the most common custom number formats used in Excel is the mmm-yy format. As an example this format displays all the dates in January 2019 as Jan-19. This format is used in most reports, budgets and financial models. There is quicker way to apply it than using the Format Cells dialog.
Counting Duplicates in an Excel Range
Another SUMPRODUCT solution
The Duplicates option under conditional formatting is useful to identify when there are duplicate entries within a range. This requires you to review the range to see if there are any duplicates. You can use a formula to identify ranges that contain duplicates.