Excel University Blog
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Posts
Let me ask you a question. How do you know when a user has entered a value into a formula cell, essentially overriding your formula? Since this is Excel, there are several ways to address this issue, but starting with Excel 2013, we can use conditional formatting with the new ISFORMULA function. Objective Our worksheet…
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I’m excited to announce the Excel University scholarship program! Excel University will recognize outstanding accounting students enrolled in an accredited college or university in the US, and will provide a $500 cash award as well as free enrollment into our online training program. These scholarships are awarded annually. Please help me spread the word by forwarding…
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A histogram graphically displays the number of items that fall within equal intervals, or, bins. For example, the number of days with a high temperature between 71-80 degrees, 81-90, and 91-100, the number of students with test scores between 60-69, 70-79, 80-89, or the number of invoices that are due in 31-60, 61-90, or 91-120…
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The terms Moving, Rolling, and Trailing are commonly used to describe the same calculation idea…that we want to operate on the previous say 3, 6, or 12 data rows. In this post, we’ll allow the user to define the number of rows to include and use the OFFSET function to dynamically define the desired range. Objective…
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If you have a data table that is updated frequently, for example, a new column is added each month, you may want to find the sum of the last three columns. But, you don’t want to rewrite your formula each time you add a new column. Fortunately, you can accomplish this task with two lookup functions,…
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In this post, we’ll examine custom format codes that allow you to get your date values formatted exactly as desired. This post is inspired by Sidney, who asked how to change date formats in Excel. Format Cells To change the format of a date value, select the cell and then open the Format Cells dialog…
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I’m pleased to announce the introduction of Excel University guest lectures! Until now, all of the Excel University courses were written by a single instructor (me). Moving forward, Excel University will also offer guest lectures by my Excel friends and recognized Excel experts. They will be talking about their areas of interest and expertise. Guest…
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Beginning with Excel 2013 for Windows, we can use Slicers to filter table data. In this post, we’ll explore how to use Slicers as a relatively easy alternative to conditional drop-downs. Objective When we want to allow a user to select a choice from a list of items, we often consider using the Data Validation feature to…
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The conditional formatting feature of Excel is one of my favorites. In this post, we’ll customize a default rule to create alert icons for our journal entry log that indicate which entries are out of balance. Objective Our objective is to create an alert when a journal entry is out of balance. Since this is Excel, there…
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Excel’s Merge and Center command has an icon, but, it is often better to Center Across Selection instead of merging cells. Unfortunately, the current version of Excel doesn’t have a Center Across Selection Ribbon icon. In this post, we’ll create a simple macro that we can activate with a Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) icon. Objective Let’s…
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