Excel University Blog

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Posts

Stock Data Type – Stock Quotes and More

By Jeff Lenning | November 27, 2018 |

Well, I have a great update for you! We have the new system for retrieving stock quotes that we’ve been waiting for. It is the Stocks data type. But, first, a quick background. Historically, we were able to retrieve stock quotes by using the MSN MoneyCentral web query. I wrote about that here. And, that…

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Bar Chart Target Markers

By Jeff Lenning | November 14, 2018 |

Using target markers in a bar chart to compare a value (such as actual sales) to a target (such as budget or forecast) provides a clean display. As with anything in Excel, there are several ways to build such a chart. In this post, we’ll walk through a technique that does not require any calculated…

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Dynamic Chart Title with Slicers

By Jeff Lenning | November 7, 2018 |

Here’s the situation. We have created a PivotTable and related PivotChart, and, since we are nice, we have also provided a Slicer so that the user can easily make selections. But, we’d like the report titles to dynamically update based on the selections made. As with anything in Excel, there are multiple ways to accomplish…

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Excel Speed: Hidden Commands and QAT Buttons

By Jeff Lenning | October 23, 2018 |

Working fast is about knowing features and functions, for sure, but, it is also about how quickly we communicate with Excel. We can set up QAT buttons to activate frequently used commands … and … hidden commands. Hidden commands? Yes … Excel has far more commands than are provided in the standard ribbon tabs. It…

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Excel Speed: 3 Keyboards Shortcuts worth Memorizing

By Jeff Lenning | October 17, 2018 |

In addition to knowing which features and functions can help you work faster in Excel, knowing a few keyboard shortcuts will help as well. You see, the faster you can communicate with Excel the faster you’ll get your Excel-work done. So, in this post, I’ll talk about 3 of my most-used shortcuts and then show…

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Excel 2019 and O365 + ebook

By Jeff Lenning | October 9, 2018 |

Historically, when it was time for Microsoft to release the next version of Excel, everyone would be buzzing, excited, and talking about the new features, functions, and improvements. I know that my heart would pitter-patter as the new version was installing on my system. But, things are different now. In fact, in a way, the…

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Query Variables

By Jeff Lenning | September 27, 2018 |

Let’s say we are building a query to clean up and prepare some data for use, and we have a specific value we need to use within the query. But, we would like to be able to change the value as desired, before refreshing the query. One option would be to enter and update that…

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SUBTOTAL Macro v2

By Jeff Lenning | September 12, 2018 |

The SUBTOTAL function is one of my favorites. So, I wrote a post about it a while back that provided a macro to insert it. The macro worked kinda like the AutoSum command, but it inserted the SUBTOTAL function instead of the SUM function. Gary posted a suggestion for enhancing the macro, so, I wrote…

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2018 Scholarship Winners

By Jeff Lenning | August 29, 2018 |

I am thrilled to announce this year’s Excel University scholarship winners! These scholarships are supported by the Excel University Alumni Association, so thanks to all of you who have helped make these awards possible! A special thank you this year to Gary Zeune of The Pros and The Cons who has generously donated time helping…

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Sort a PivotTable with a Custom List

By Jeff Lenning | August 22, 2018 |

In this post, we’ll talk about how to use a custom list to automatically sort a PivotTable. By default, a PT is initially displayed in alphabetical order by the row labels. But, what if that isn’t what we want? Well, we can always manually sort each time we create a PT. But, there is a…

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