Excel Tips to Make Your Life Easier Michael Winecoff Associate University Librarian for Technical Services November 5, 2015.

Excel Tips to Make Your Life Easier

Michael WinecoffAssociate University Librarian for Technical Services

November 5, 2015

Quick Navigation

Move to beginning of row

Move to beginning of sheet

Move to last cell on the worksheet

Move to next right-hand cell or end of row if contiguous

Move to next left-hand cell or beginning of the row if contiguous

Move to next cell in column or end of column if contiguous

Move to next upper cell or the beginning of column

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Quick Selecting/Highlighting

Select the entire worksheet

Select column

Select row

Select to lower right corner

Select multiple cells Arrow keys

Select entire contiguous block Arrow keys

Select individual cells or blocks individual cells

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Click the corner squareor

Cursor movement during data entry

Permanently change

Temporarily change• Highlight desired area

for data entry• When you tab it will

stay within the border

File-Options- Advanced Editing Options

Copy data and formulas to end of a column or row

• You can also double-click on lower right-hand corner to fill in to end of the spreadsheet

• You can autofill with numbers, months, years and time. Months can also be abbreviated

• Hover over lower right-hand corner of cell until a plus sign appears. Pull down or across columns

Pinning often used spreadsheets

• File – Recent - - Click on the pushpin next to the spreadsheet name. It will go to the top section. Click again to remove it.

• Mouse hint: Bring up Excel and use the keyboard shorts Alt-F, R and then key the number or letters

Unhiding column A

Hiding Column A is easy, but unhiding is tricky

• Right click on the Column B header and select Unhide

• Highlight the header for Column B and drag the mouse to the left

Freezing rows and columns

• View – Freeze Panes– Choose either:

Freeze PanesFreeze Top RowFreeze First Column

– Freeze Panes will freeze rows and columns. Place the cursor to the right or below those areas. This will freeze the columns and headers.

Keep rows and/or columns on the screen when scrolling

Placing the cursor in this cell freezes the lines above and to the left

Removing blank cells

Helpful with columns of unrelated dataSelect the spreadsheet or area

Go to the Home tabEditing - Find & SelectGo To SpecialClick BlanksHit OKBlanks will highlight

Click the Delete button

Adjusting column widthSelect the columns you would like to resize by using the following:

– Right click on the header Select Column Width

– Place the cursor on the divider bar between or to the right of one of the selected columns and drag to the desired width

– You can also double-click between the selected columns

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Zooming in

• Scenario: The spreadsheet is too small on the screen, but you don’t want to change your font for printing.

View – Zoom Use the mouse wheel with CTRL

Use the slide bar in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen

Adjusting page breaks

• Click on the Page Break Preview icon in the lower right-hand corner

• You can adjust the page breaks by clicking and dragging them with the mouse.

Displaying Excel on the Windows taskbar

If you have multiple workbooks open you can control if the workbooks appear separately on the taskbar or all in one icon

File -- Options -- Advanced -- Display -- Show all windows in the Taskbar

Unchecking this will show only one entry

Using Excel with two monitors

Two options:• Open two separate instances of Excel. Nice

because they are separate, but this makes it more problematic to share information

• Open two workbooks as usual in one instance of Excel. Drag Excel to cover both monitors. Select View – View Side by Side

Printing column headers

– Page Layout – Print Titles– Click in Rows to repeat at top box– Click the top row of your spreadsheet– Do the same for columns if desired– Now these will appear on every printed page

Printing part of a spreadsheet

• Printing part of the spreadsheet– Highlight what you want printed– Page Layout – Print Area– Set Print Area

Printing -- Making it fit

– Scale a worksheet for printing• Page Layout – Page Setup• Click the corner of the Dialog Box Launcher• To print the spreadsheet on one page click on Fit to• For all columns on one page assure 1 is in the pages(s)

wide. Change tall to > 1• Hint: Print preview might give

you a more user-friendly visual option for customizingcolumns and rows on the page

Monitoring cells

• The Watch Window makes it convenient to see formula calculations that are not viewable on the screen without having to scroll to the cell(s)

• Click on the cell to watch Formulas – Watch Window

Tidbits

1. Quickly sum by highlighting cells. The result will be in the lower right-hand corner

2. Sum a column with the combination Alt =3. Drag and drop your tabs to reorder4. Break up words in a cell by double-clicking

where you want the break - Press Alt Enter5. Ctrl + ` (grave accent) shows all formulas

Screen capture using Windows

To easily make an image of part or all of the screen try the Snipping Tool built into Windows

• Start -- All Programs -- Accessories -- Snipping Tool

• You can paste these images into your spreadsheet

Manual text breaks within cells

Scenario: Text is hidden because cell is too short

• Double-click the cell or press F2 to edit• Place the cursor where you want the text to

flow to the next line• Press Alt+Enter -- Enter• Enlarge cell to display all text