I want to help you Excel at work: Hit Ctrl + [ to view where the contents of a cell came from, like a formula or reference. Sweet. A ton more Excel shortcuts here.
Master Excel with these 5 genius tricks
You can’t keep track of everything on paper. Excel can play a significant role in your daily workload. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro user, there’s much to learn — like these five useful Excel tricks.
Want to become an Excel expert? It’s a good strategy for small business owners who want to grow this year. After all, you’ll generate tons of data. Speaking of which, here’s how to stop third parties from selling your data.
Maybe you’re overlooking the most useful Excel strategies. Scroll down for five Excel tricks to simplify your professional and personal life.
1. First of five useful Excel tricks: Solve errors
Microsoft Excel is chock full of practical formulas. They help save hours you’d otherwise spend clacking away at a calculator.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to make mistakes when calculating through Excel. Its formulas reference many cells, and you can confuse them if you don’t pay attention. Use this table to fix common Excel error messages:
| Error message | Why did you get it? | How to fix it … |
| ##### | One of your columns isn’t wide enough. | Increase the column width. |
| #DIV/0! | Your formula refers to a cell that has 0 or is blank. | Make sure your divisor in a function isn’t blank or zero, or try these other solutions. |
| #REF! | Maybe you deleted or moved a cell one of your formulas refers to. Either way, your cell reference isn’t valid. | Restore any cells you deleted or change the formula. |
| #N/A | One of the values in your function or formula isn’t available. | Replace #N/A with new data. |
| #NAME? | Excel doesn’t recognize the text in your formula. | First, make sure the cell name exists. Then, check for spelling errors. |
| #NULL! | You made an error when specifying an intersection of two areas. | Use a colon (:) to separate references to a contiguous range of cells. Are you referring to two areas that don’t intersect? Use a comma (,) instead. |
| #NUM! | Your formula or function has invalid numeric values. | Make sure the arguments used in functions are numbers. |
| #VALUE! | You used the wrong type of variable or value in a math operation. | Double-check your formula, function and cells referenced by the formula. |
2. Transpose data in a snap
So you transferred some data into Excel — but it didn’t look how you wanted it to. Maybe you entered the data as rows when you wanted them to become columns. Don’t worry: You don’t have to reformat each cell manually.
With these steps, you can rotate data in your worksheet from columns to rows and vice versa.
- First, select the data in your desired column or row.
- Then, press Ctrl + C to copy the selected cells.
- Right-click an empty cell in a row or column where you want the copied cells to go.
- Select Transpose from the paste options.
Just like that, you’ll be able to reformat your data.
Here are 7 mouse shortcuts you'll use again and again
No matter how long you’ve been using computers, there’s still a special feeling when you discover a new shortcut that makes life easier.
The Windows key is a relative newcomer to keyboards, where many standard keys date back to typewriters. Tap or click here for seven Windows key shortcuts you’ll use daily.
Excel error codes? Here's the fix
Do you use spreadsheets a lot? I bet you’ve seen your fair share of error codes. Try these easy one-minute fixes.
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Get it together: Microsoft’s beefing up its Copilot AI chatbot for Excel and Outlook. They say it’ll make life easier for finance pros, but hold the applause. The latest version of Outlook sends unencrypted passwords, emails, contacts, calendar details and even passwords straight to Microsoft’s servers when you add a new email account. No fix yet, so stick to using Outlook’s web version for now, not the desktop client.
Around this date 41 years ago, Microsoft released its very first software application. Was it … A.) Flight Simulator, B.) Excel, C.) Notepad or D.) Word?
How to ditch Office for Docs and Excel for Sheets
Microsoft Office has been around for a long time, and understandably, people love the familiarity with its applications. But it is expensive.
As more businesses and educational institutes switch to Google programs such as Docs and Sheets, it can’t hurt to check them out. And you can save money by switching.
Fed up with Excel? This site creates formulas for you
Few things frustrate us more than the inability to crack an Excel task independently. We love formulas and conditional cells, but the best way to utilize these features isn’t always easy. Tap or click for tricks to get the most out of Microsoft Word and Excel.
Google trick: Type filetype: at the beginning of your search when looking for a spreadsheet or other document. Want a PDF? Write filetype:pdf and then your keyword. For an Excel spreadsheet, type filetype:xlsx and your keyword. Anything publicly available is a few clicks away.
Excel at this: Say you’re using Microsoft Excel, and you have a list of employees’ names in column A (e.g., John Doe, Jane Smith and Emily Jones), but you need to give them standard email addresses in column B. In column B, next to their name in column A, type the corresponding email address — think “jdoe@company.com” for the “John Doe” in column A. Now, the magic: Click on the cell where you typed the email address, and then press Ctrl + E. Excel will automatically “flash fill” the column with email addresses following your pattern.
Excel helper: Hit Ctrl + [ to view where the contents of a cell came from, like a formula or reference. Sweet. A ton more Excel shortcuts here.
📂 Size matters: Use Excel often? Save big files in an .XLSB format instead of .XLS. The file size will shrink by up to 75%. Nice one!
Struggling with Excel? 3 tips and tutorials to help you out
Ah, Excel. It’s been around since the ’80s, yet it can still stump many of us. There’s a lot to learn, from creating complex formulas to navigating pivot tables.
So, where do you turn? You can buy a paid course, which will give you a lot of bang for your buck, but you can also start smaller — and free.
Don’t let curiosity about NFTs allow hackers to hijack your computer
This is NFA, but when you see 1:1 generative art that’s freshly minted at the start of a new SZN, you need to DYOR before you move liquidity. Otherwise, you’re NGMI and possibly lose much more than 5ETH and a few NFTs.
Patch your Windows PC now to stamp out 50 vulnerabilities
Microsoft has rolled out another slew of fixes for Windows vulnerabilities in the June edition of Patch Tuesday. The second Tuesday of every month is when major software developers fix problems with their software.
The latest update corrects 50 security flaws. It includes six zero-day vulnerabilities and a handful that have been marked as critical or high priority. The new version of Windows might be on the horizon, but Microsoft isn’t slowing down on updates.
This powerful free office program can replace Microsoft Office
Students use Microsoft Word for their essays and accountants use Excel to crunch numbers. Business executives rely on PowerPoint to pitch new products. It’s expensive, but since it’s the gold standard of productivity software, few people think to replace Microsoft Office.
Microsoft warns of massive phishing campaign targeting PCs
Have you been busy during quarantine? If not, don’t worry — most of us haven’t been. But that statement doesn’t apply to hackers and cybercriminals, who’ve spent the COVID-19 pandemic refining their technique and creating phishing websites to steal people’s data.
All the ways you can get Microsoft Office for free
Microsoft Office Suite — Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access and Publisher — is the standard when it comes to digital office software. It set the precedent of what organization and presentation software should be and continues to be the software set you need most for basic computer and work tasks.
Microsoft's easy-to-use new app combines Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Microsoft recently launched the Microsoft Office app for Android, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It’s free to use and download, but the premium features will cost you. If you’re on a strict budget, tap or click here to learn more about how you can get Microsoft Office for free.