6 Microsoft Excel Tricks That You Didn’t Know About
Hello everyone, today you will find some neat and somewhat unique tricks for your MS Excel program. Microsoft Excel has been with us for a long time. It is one of the most popular productivity applications to date. Some users are fond of Excel as it helps them become more productive at work whereas others think Excel is complicated and doesn’t like to see the rows and column sheet of Excel. However, if you are one of the users who know how to use Excel appropriately, you will soon find out that Excel is one powerful tool to deal with. In this article, we will be discussing six Excel tips and tricks that you should know, irrespective of whether you are a beginner or an expert user of Excel.
Table of Contents
Microsoft Excel Tricks
1. Eliminate Duplicates
It is quite natural to have few duplicates whenever a user works with huge datasets in an Excel sheet. Instead of looking into each of the datasets to find out the duplicates, Excel has a way of finding and eliminating the duplicates and that too with simply a click of a button. First, you have to select and highlight the whole data set. Then click the ‘Data’ tab. Next, select the option denoted as the ‘Remove Duplicates’ button. Next, choose the columns in which you require Excel to identify the duplicates. Finally, click the ‘OK’ option.
2. Recovering an Excel Document
There could be scenarios wherein the Excel document faces some errors, and it shuts down, leaving you unsure about whether the data has been saved. This type of issue occurs when you mistakenly closed the Excel file, or the system faces some errors. The first thing that comes to your mind is how to recover an excel document that you were working on. The three basic things you should do are check for the Excel file in the Trash, try to perform an auto-recovery of the closed Excel document, and recover the overwritten file by navigating to the browser version history and restoring the version you require by browsing the Version History Excel.
3. Seamlessly Calculate
You have to remember some formula, and Excel can do the calculations right away while you are in the spreadsheet rather than head towards the calculator option. Just choose a blank cell in the spreadsheet where the addition needs to be displayed. Just type in the blank cell “=SUM”. Now enter two numbers in different cells, select both cells and click the Enter button. The result of the added numbers will be displayed.
Similarly, you have to type ‘=’ within a blank cell where the results after subtraction of two numbers need to be displayed. Choose the cell you want to subtract from and then type ‘-‘ and then choose the cell you intend to subtract before clicking Enter button. The subtracted results will be displayed. Follow similar steps of subtraction in doing multiplication as well as division also. In multiplication, instead of the ‘-‘ symbol, ‘*’ need to be clicked. For division, instead of the ‘-‘ symbol, the ‘/’ symbol needs to be clicked. Apart from these basic formulas, complex mathematical equations can be easily solved too.
4. Make the Panes Stick
You might have come across some situations in which you have to constantly move towards the top of the spreadsheet to check whether you are at the right column header or not. It could be frustrating and time-consuming. However, Excel provides you with the option to let the panes stick on the window no matter how much you scroll. To do this, you have to click the rows that are placed below the column headers. Next, choose the tab denoted as ‘View’ and select the option denoted as ‘Freeze Panes’.
5. Entering Current Date in Excel
You are in a hurry in entering the data on an Excel spreadsheet, and there is one row in every column where you have to enter the date details. You don’t remember, and you go towards the bottom of the computer screen to check today’s date and enter it manually. Frustrating right? But Excel provides an easy shortcut using which you can enter the date with just one click through a keyboard shortcut. It’s ‘Ctrl + ‘. You have to get the mouse pointer towards the cell where the date needs to be placed and then click the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+. The date will be automatically filled in the cell.
6. Apply the same change across the Worksheet
You are working on multiple tabs, and you are trying to work on the same changes in each of the Worksheets. Isn’t it time consuming? However, Excel allows you to apply the same changes across the worksheet. First, you have to click the ‘Command’ key on your keyboard and choose the required tabs within the workbook on which you wish to apply the same changes. Once done, apply the necessary changes to one cell. You should then check whether the changes have been applied in all of the worksheets.
Excel is more user-friendly than one might think. Once you understand the Excel tips, you will become more comfortable using the Excel application in the future.
You can also try to use an alternative that includes an Excel like software for free, LibreOffice.
