Excel University Blog

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Conditional Formatting

Count and Sum Negative Numbers

By Jeff Lenning | November 28, 2023 |

Welcome to our tutorial on how to count and sum negative numbers in Excel! We will cover three exercises where we will learn how to utilize COUNTIF, SUMIF, and conditional formatting to count, sum, and identify negative transactions. By the end, you will have multiple techniques to operate on negative numbers in Excel. Let’s jump…

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Find Cells That Contain Specific Text

By Jeff Lenning | November 14, 2023 |

The objective of this tutorial is to learn how to write formulas in Excel that can identify specific text strings within cells. We will start by using the SEARCH function to find cells that contain a specific word, then convert the results into TRUE / FALSE values, and finally apply conditional formatting to highlight these…

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Identify the Smallest Values in an Excel List

By Jeff Lenning | October 31, 2023 |

The goal of this tutorial is to provide step-by-step instructions on how to use various methods to extract or identify the smallest values in a list. We will cover three exercises that include the SMALL function, the SEQUENCE function, and conditional formatting. Video Walkthrough Let’s take each of these methods one at a time. We’ll…

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Excel How To Compare Two Columns (3 ways)

By Jeff Lenning | July 18, 2023 |

Using Microsoft Excel to compare two columns is a great way to look for discrepancies or similarities between two different sets of data. This post provides 3 different ways to accomplish this so that you can use the one that is most appropriate for your data and workbook. Video Step-by-step guide Let’s work through each…

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Excel How To Remove Duplicates (3 Easy Ways)

By Jeff Lenning | May 30, 2023 |

This post demonstrates how to remove duplicates from your Microsoft Excel worksheets. As with just about anything in Excel, there are multiple ways. I’ll show you 3 of the easiest and fastest ways to do it, specifically: the Remove Duplicates command, the UNIQUE function, and Power Query. Video Narrative We’ll just walk through each of…

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Woman happily looking at her laptop after learning how to hide rows in Excel based on cell value

Hide Rows in Excel Based on Cell Value (Without VBA)

By Excel University | February 28, 2023 |

Being able to hide rows based on cell value in Excel is a handy skill for anyone who needs to organize a large spreadsheet. Imagine you have a huge list of data, but only some of the rows are relevant to you at the moment. When you hide rows based on cell value, you can…

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Frustrated woman looking at a computer screen while learning how to fix #REF in Excel

What’s #REF in Excel and How to Fix It

By Excel University | November 15, 2022 |

When a formula contains an invalid cell or range reference, the #REF! error is displayed. #REF! in Excel is short for reference, and you’ll usually see it pop up when cells that were referenced in formulas are deleted. They can be a nuisance, but they’re usually pretty simple to find and fix. Here’s how to…

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Man sitting at a desk with an open computer learning How to Clean Data in Excel

How to Clean Data in Excel – 8 Easy Ways

By Excel University | November 8, 2022 |

Man sitting at a desk with an open computer learning How to Clean Data in Excel

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Woman looking through a magnifying glass at how to highlight duplicates in excel

How to Highlight Duplicates in Excel

By Excel University | July 26, 2022 |

A duplicate value is a value that shows up more than once in a spreadsheet. These pop up all the time when working with datasets, and they can be tedious to sort through if you don’t know the quick ways to find them. Learn how to highlight duplicates in Excel to make the process take…

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Woman pointing to the left while thinking about advanced Excel tips

Even Pros Could Learn a Thing or Two From These 8 Advanced Excel Tips

By Excel University | June 21, 2022 |

Looking for some advanced Excel tips to help you become a spreadsheet pro? We’re sharing 8 tips that will take your skills to the next level!

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