Microsoft Excel is one of those programs that is far more versatile than many people believe. Certainly it allows you to enter and analyze data, but you also can use it for accounting, planning, tracking data, making calendars, creating a budget and much more. While many people know how to use the most basic features of Excel, here are a few cool tricks that you might not have known.
Highlighting data is something we often have to do, especially if you need to cut and paste or copy and paste the data. To highlight quickly, tap into the first cell of a row and just hit your shift and spacebar. The whole row will highlight and you can copy or cut the data.
If you need to highlight all the data on an entire spreadsheet, such as if you wish to copy or cut all the data and move it someplace else, there is a much easier way to do this than dragging your mouse across all the cells of data. You just click in the first cell and then hit F8. From there, you just click on the last cell of the spreadsheet, and all of the cells will be highlighted. You can do this for just one column or the whole spreadsheet. When you want this function to cease, just hit F8 again.
One annoyance is that when you add a great deal of data and you start to move below about the 38th row, you lose the visibility of your header. That might be fine if you just have two or three columns of data, but if you are entering data into a large amount of columns, it is sometimes tough to remember which column is which. For this reason, it is nice to have the header visible all of the time.
You can create a second header that will appear all of the time. Go over to the right edge and find the scroll bar for the spreadsheet. Above that is an up arrow or triangle that is filled in, and above that is a box with a line in it. Place your cursor over this box and wait until the cursor looks like two up and down arrows with two lines in between arrows. Click and hold and a dark line will appear. Move this arrow down slightly and slowly and you will see a second header appear. Release the mouse and this header will stay in place and you will be able to see it the whole time you enter data, even after row 38.
When you are analyzing data or just need to look at data of a specific criterion, then the ability to sort and filter can be handy. Microsoft excel has a function just for this purpose located along with many other features on the Home tab. This provides you with the ability to sort items alphabetically, to create a custom sort or to filter for specific terms or information. To learn more about Microsoft Excel, there is a help function built into the program located near the top right part of the program. It is a question mark located in a blue circle. This allows you to browse for answers to questions, learn shortcuts and other helpful hints.
Highlighting data is something we often have to do, especially if you need to cut and paste or copy and paste the data. To highlight quickly, tap into the first cell of a row and just hit your shift and spacebar. The whole row will highlight and you can copy or cut the data.
If you need to highlight all the data on an entire spreadsheet, such as if you wish to copy or cut all the data and move it someplace else, there is a much easier way to do this than dragging your mouse across all the cells of data. You just click in the first cell and then hit F8. From there, you just click on the last cell of the spreadsheet, and all of the cells will be highlighted. You can do this for just one column or the whole spreadsheet. When you want this function to cease, just hit F8 again.
One annoyance is that when you add a great deal of data and you start to move below about the 38th row, you lose the visibility of your header. That might be fine if you just have two or three columns of data, but if you are entering data into a large amount of columns, it is sometimes tough to remember which column is which. For this reason, it is nice to have the header visible all of the time.
You can create a second header that will appear all of the time. Go over to the right edge and find the scroll bar for the spreadsheet. Above that is an up arrow or triangle that is filled in, and above that is a box with a line in it. Place your cursor over this box and wait until the cursor looks like two up and down arrows with two lines in between arrows. Click and hold and a dark line will appear. Move this arrow down slightly and slowly and you will see a second header appear. Release the mouse and this header will stay in place and you will be able to see it the whole time you enter data, even after row 38.
When you are analyzing data or just need to look at data of a specific criterion, then the ability to sort and filter can be handy. Microsoft excel has a function just for this purpose located along with many other features on the Home tab. This provides you with the ability to sort items alphabetically, to create a custom sort or to filter for specific terms or information. To learn more about Microsoft Excel, there is a help function built into the program located near the top right part of the program. It is a question mark located in a blue circle. This allows you to browse for answers to questions, learn shortcuts and other helpful hints.
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