9.Press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER to
enter the formula as an array formula.
The formula returns the value 8.00.
10.Select cell F2, grab the
fill handle, and then fill down to cell F5 to retrieve the price for each part
and code combination.
Method 2
A second method yields the same results but uses
concatenation instead. The following sample formula may be better for matching
data against more than two criteria because it does not require nested IF
statements. This method is identical to Method 1 except that you replace the
formula in step 3 with the following formula:
9.Press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER to
enter the formula as an array formula.
The formula returns the value 8.00.
10.Select cell B6, grab the
fill handle, and then fill right to cell E6 to retrieve the price for each part
and code combination.
Method 2
A second method yields the same results but uses
concatenation instead. The following sample formula may be better for matching
data against more than two criteria because it does not require nested IF
statements. This method is identical to Method 1 (under Example 2) except that
you replace the formula in step 3 with the following formula:
Excel lets us control things through events. This article isn’t a detail discussion on what events are or their features. Instead it gives an example of a WorkBook Event. These are events that are held at the workbook level rather than a particular worksheet.
Through VBA we can control what happens at certain events such as before printing or before saving. One common problem that I face is that a number of people I work with don’t like files with Freeze Panes on them.
So in this article, we will put together some code that will check if Freeze Panes is on and if so, it won’t save the file. This means that I have to save it without freeze panes – keeping my colleagues happy !!
The most important thing about workbook events is that they should be saved in the correct place – at the workbook level.
To access the workbook level, follow the steps below:
1. Right click on an Excel workbook – view code:
2. This will bring up:
3. Double click on “This Workbook” and then select “WorkBook” from the first drop down on the left hand side:
We see that the value on the left hand side has now changed to “Open” – with some code for the Workbook Open Event. This code will let us determine what happens when the workbook opens for the first time.
However we want to control what happens when we save the workbook. So change the right hand drop down to “Before Save” . The screen will now look like:
We now insert the following code after the declaration:
If ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True Then
MsgBox "Freeze Panes is on - File is NOT SAVED"
Cancel = True
End If
So that the complete code now looks like:
Private Sub Workbook_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As Boolean)
If ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True Then
MsgBox "Freeze Panes is on - File is NOT SAVED"
Cancel = True
End If
End Sub
Now save the file and THEN activate Freeze Panes in any window. Then – RESAVE the file. A msgbox will appear stating that “Freeze Panes” is on – and the file is not saved.
Indeed the file will not save until Freeze Panes is removed.
If you are a new with excel..so don't need to worry know more about in Excel formatting...
Excel has a strong and often missed feature, calledConditional Formatting, which allows you to format a cell depending on a rule [it's value]. This can be very useful for worksheets like Product Quantities and Dates. Let me show you what I mean.
Lets start off with a simple chart of products quantities in the warehouse.
We’ll want to mark the products that are low in stock (under 15) so a re-order can be done.
Let’s Start…
1. Start by selecting the rows you want to apply formatting to.
2. Let’s open the Conditional Formatting menu, and open a New Rule
3. Here, we define our formatting rules. We’ll define cells that their value is less than 15. Copy the following form - Do not click “OK” yet.
4. Now after we’ve defined our formatting rule, we need to choose the formatting options to use on those cells:
- Click the “Format” button in the previous form.
Under the Fill tab, select red.
Under Font, select the color white.
Press OK twice. You should now see your cells colored:
As we can see, this is very simply and highly effective. There are many custom rules already defined if you don’t want to use “Custom” rules.
AND Background Image in a Worksheet...
You can tile an image as a background in a worksheet by doing the following:
1. On the Main Menu click Format 2. Select Sheet 3. Select Background 4. Choose your image
I used an old school brick background in the following picture.
Don’t waste any more hours in Microsoft Excel doing things manually. There are many ways to use Excel formulas to decrease the amount of time you spend in Excel and increase the accuracy of your data and your reports.
Excel Formulas You Should Definitely Know:
1. SUM
Formula: =SUM(5, 5) or =SUM(A1, B1) or =SUM(A1:B5)
The SUM formula does exactly what you would expect. It allows you to add 2 or more numbers together. You can use cell references as well in this formula.
The above shows you different examples. You can have numbers in there separated by commas and it will add them together for you, you can have cell references and as long as there are numbers in those cells it will add them together for you, or you can have a range of cells with a colon in between the 2 cells, and it will add the numbers in all the cells in the range.
2. COUNT
Formula: =COUNT(A1:A10)
The count formula counts the number of cells in a range that have numbers in them.
Counts the number of non-empty cells in a range. It will count cells that have numbers and/or any other characters in them.
The COUNTA Formula works with all data types.
It counts the number of non-empty cells no matter the data type.
4. LEN
Formula: =LEN(A1)
The LEN formula counts the number of characters in a cell. Be careful though! This includes spaces.
Notice the difference in the formula results: 10 characters without spaces in between the words, 12 with spaces between the words.
5. TRIM
Formula: =TRIM(A1)
Gets rid of any space in a cell, except for single spaces between words. I’ve found this formula to be extremely useful because I’ve often run into situations where you pull data from a database and for some reason extra spaces are put in behind or in front of legitimate data. This can wreak havoc if you are trying to compare using IF statements or VLOOKUP’s.
I added in an extra space behind “I Love Excel”. The TRIM formula removes that extra space. Check out the character count difference with and without the TRIM formula.
6. RIGHT, LEFT, MID
Formulas: = RIGHT(text, number of characters), =LEFT(text, number of characters), =MID(text, start number, number of characters).
(Note: In all of these formulas, wherever it says “text” you can use a cell reference as well)
These formulas return the specified number of characters from a text string. RIGHT gives you the number of characters from the right of the text string, LEFT gives you the number of characters from the left, and MID gives you the specified number of characters from the middle of the word. You tell the MID formula where to start with the start_number and then it grabs the specified number of characters to the right of the start_number.
I used the LEFT formula to get the first word. I had it look in cell A1 and grab only the 1st character from the left. This gave us the word “I” from “I love Excel”
I used the MID formula to get the middle word. I had it look in cell A1, start at character 3, and grab 5 characters after that. This gives us just the word “love” from “I love Excel”
I used the RIGHT formula to get the last word. I had it look at cell A1 and grab the first 6 characters from the right. This gives us “Excel” from “I love Excel”
By far my most used formula. The official description of what it does: “Looks for a value in the leftmost column of a table, and then returns a value in the same row from a column you specify…”. (See the full explanation of VLOOKUP) Basically, you define a value (the lookup_value) for the formula to look for. It looks for this value in the leftmost column of a table (the table_array).
Note: If at all possible use a number for the lookup_value. This makes it a lot easier to make sure the data you are getting back is a correct match.
If it finds a match of the “lookup_value” in the left column of the “table_array” it will return the value in the column you specify using the “index_num”. The “index_num” is relative to the left most column. So, if you have the table_index look in column A and you want what is returned to be what’s in column B the “index_num” would be 2 because the leftmost column, column A in this case, is the 1st column in the table array and column B is the 2nd column (hence the 2 for the index number). If you want what is in column C to be returned you’d put 3 for the index_num. The “range_lookup” is a TRUE or FALSE value. If you put TRUE it will give you the closest match. If you put FALSE it will only give you an exact match. I only use FALSE when using the VLOOKUP formula.
Example:
You have 2 lists: 1 with a sales person’s ID and the sales revenue for the quarter. Another with the sales person’s ID and the sales person’s name. You want to match up the sales person’s name to the sales person’s revenue numbers for the quarter. They are all jumbled around so to manually match this, even for a small number of salesmen would leave room for a high margin of error and take a lot of time.
The first list goes from A1 to B13. The 2nd list goes from D1 to E25.
In cell C1 I would put the formula =VLOOKUP(B18, $A$1:$B$13, 2, FALSE)
B18 = the lookup_value (the sales person’s ID. This is a number that appears on both lists.)
$A$1:$B$13 = the “table_array”. This is the area I want the formula to search the leftmost column (column E in this case) for the “lookup_value”. I went to F because if it finds match in column E, I want it to return what’s in column F. (The money signs are there so that the table_array will stay the same no matter where the formula is moved or copied to. This is called an absolute reference.)
2 = the index_num. This tells the formula the number of columns away from the left most column to return in case of match. So, if you find a match between the lookup_value and the leftmost column of the table array, return what’s in the same row in the 2nd column of the table (the 1st column is always the leftmost column. It starts at 1, not 0).
FALSE= tells the formula I want it to only return the value if it’s an exact match.
I would then copy and paste that formula along all the cells in column C next to the first list. This would give me a perfectly aligned list with the sales person’s ID, sales person’s revenue for the quarter, and the sales person’s name.
In order to get a nice neat list of Sales Person ID, Sales Person Name, and Sales Person Revenue all next to each other I used the VLOOKUP formula to compare 1 listto another.
Formula: =IF(logical_statement, return this if logical statement is true, return this if logical statement is false)
When you’re doing an analysis of a lot of data in Excel there are a lot of scenarios you could be trying to discover and the data has to react differently based on a different situation.
Continuing with the sales example: Let’s say a salesperson has a quota to meet. You used VLOOKUP to put the revenue next to the name. Now you can use an IF statement that says: “IF the salesperson met their quota, say “Met quota”, if not say “Did not meet quota” (Tip: saying it in a statement like this can make it a lot easier to create the formula, especially when you get to more complicated things like Nested IF Statements in Excel).
It would look like this:
In the example with the VLOOKUP we had the revenue in column B and the person’s name in column C (brought in with the VLOOKUP). We could put their quota in column D and then we’d put the following formula in cell E1:
=IF(C3>D3, “Met Quota”, “Did Not Meet Quota”)
This IF statement will tell us if the first salesperson met their quota or not. We would then copy and paste this formula along all the entries in the list. It would change for each sales person.
Having the result right there from the IF statement is a lot easier than manually figuring this out.
These formulas all do their respective functions (SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE) IF the criteria are met. There are also the formulas: SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, AVERAGEIFS where they will do their respective functions based on multiple criteria you give the formula.
I use these formulas in our example to see the average revenue (AVERAGEIF) if a person met their quota, Total revenue (SUMIF) for the just the sales people who met their quota, and the count of sales people who met their quota (COUNTIF)
10. CONCATENATE
A fancy word for combining data in 2 (or more) different cells into one cell. This can be done with the Concatenate excel formula or it can be done by simply putting the &symbol in between the two cells. If I have “Steve” in cell A1 and “Quatrani” in cell B1 I could put this formula: =A1&” “&B1 and it would give me “Steve Quatrani”. (The “ “ puts a space in between what you are combining with the &). I can use =concatenate(A1, “ “, B1) and it will give me the same thing: “Steve Quatrani”
Finding The Right Excel Formulas For The Job
There are 316 built in functions in Excel. You’re not going to sit there and memorize what all of them do (or at least I hope not!). Luckily Excel has a built in wizard that helps you find the correct formula for what you’re looking to do (if there is one).
Click the “fx” next to the formula bar in Excel
This brings up a menu and in there you can type in a description of what you are trying to do and it will bring up the correct excel formula:
I typed in “remove extra spaces” and it returned the TRIM formula that we went over earlier.
More Excel Formulas
There is so much more that I use on a regular basis such as Time formulas (NOW, TODAY, MONTH, YEAR, DAY, etc.), other formulas like AND and OR, along with many others.
The real power comes in combining these functions into complicated excel formulas.
Do you see formulas like the one above and run away screaming AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Well I don’t blame ya!
This can be a really intimidating formula even for the most seasoned Excel user.
I have a solution for you that makes it easy to both break down, and build up complicated combinations of Excel formulas but first check out this short video by fellow Udemy trainer, Mynda Treacy, that will reveal tips on how to get inside the mind of an Excel formula:
So What’s Going on With This Excel Formula?
Let’s break down all the Excel functions in it:
IFERROR
TRIM
IF
LEN
VLOOKUP
SUBSTITUTE
I’m not going to go in depth into each formula, but you’ll get the point.
Let’s start with the innermost formula. This is the end result that you are trying to accomplish.
We want to take a phrase (that we get with a VLOOKUP) that has a space in it and SUBSTITUTE that space with nothing. So it will take a phrase like “Excel Formula” and make it “ExcelFormula”.
We use the VLOOKUP formula to get the actual phrase we want from a different sheet in the Excel Workbook if it matches what’s in cell F7.
VLOOKUP(F7, Sheet2!$A$1:$B$10000, 2, FALSE)
We use an IF statement to say IF the number of characters (LEN) of what’s returned from the VLOOKUP is above 0, then run the VLOOKUP, otherwise, put nothing here. This way if the VLOOKUP returns nothing, then nothing will happen and this will prevent most errors.
We then wrap it with the TRIM function which gets rid of all extra spaces, besides 1 space in between words. Sometimes when you’re getting data from a database extraspaces can be added after a word. This can make it really hard to compare data from different sources, so the TRIM function comes in handy a lot!
Finally we wrap it in the IFERROR formula. This formula will be triggered if the other formulas wind up giving you an error. It could look something like #N/A and that’s pretty ugly. This can happen for legitimate reasons, but you don’t want to hand your boss a sheet full of #N/A symbols.
What happens is IF the combined formulas return any excel error, it will make the cell blank, otherwise it will show the results of the formula.
There you have it, this long complicated formula broken down into simple step by step functions.
You can use the same method for building up a long formula
Our goal is to SUBSTITUTE the spaces for nothing so we start with that. We then have to pull it in from another sheet so we use VLOOKUP for that, etc., etc.
You always start with the innermost formula, the end result that you are looking for. Then you use other formulas to help you deal with the different situations you’ll have to deal with working with large datasets.
The fill handle is a
versatile and powerful tool. Besides copying formulas and creating series, the
fill handle can copy formats with just a few quick clicks:
Select the cell that contains the formatting you want
to copy. In Figure A, I've selected A2 to copy the bold font
and gray fill color to the remaining cells in column A.
Double-click the cell's fill handle. The fill handle's
series behavior has kicked into gear by overwriting the TOTALS label with
January. Don't worry about that, you can undo that next.
Click the resulting AutoFill Options control to display
the list shown in Figure B.
Select the Fill Formatting Only option.
Figure A
Select the source cell -- the cell containing the formats you want
to copy.
Figure B
Choose the Fill Formatting Only option to cancel the series
overwrite and still copy the formats from the source cell.
You can see that the
fill handle canceled the series values in Figure C. In addition,
the action reverted to the original data and applied the
formats from A3 to the destination range. This method isn't superior to Format
Painter, but you won't have to select the target range, which can be awkward
with a large one.
Figure C
Excel's fill handle copied only the source cell's formats.
2: Use Paste to copy formatting
Another quick copy trick
utilizes the Paste feature. Again, the Format Painter works great with a small
range, but this trick is helpful when copying formats to an entire column or
row:
Select the source cell and press [Ctrl]+C.
Click anywhere inside the destination column or row.
Press [Ctrl]+[Spacebar] to select the entire column or
[Shift]+[Spacebar] to select the entire row. (This works only with a blank
data range.) 2010: With the column or row selected, choose
Formatting from the Paste drop-down (in the Clipboard group). 2007:
Choose Paste Special from the Paste drop-down and click Formats in the
Paste section. 2003: Right-click a selected cell and choose
Paste Special from the submenu. In the resulting dialog, click Formats in
the Paste section.
Using Live Preview, you can see what the applied
formats will look like. Click OK if you decide to apply them.
You can also format a
new chart using Paste. Select the source chart and press [Ctrl]+C. Select the
destination chart and choose Paste Special from the Paste drop-down. Choose
Formats and click OK.
3: Copy styles between workbooks
If you use the same
custom cell styles in multiple workbooks, don't spend time re-creating each
style. Instead, copy the style from one file to another as follows:
Open the source workbook and a destination workbook.
From the destination workbook, click Cell Styles in the
Styles group on the Home tab. In Excel 2003, choose Styles from the Format
menu.
Choose Merge Styles at the bottom of the gallery.
In the resulting dialog, select the open workbook that
contains the styles you want to copy.
Click OK twice.
If you want all new
workbooks to share the same custom style, open Excel's default workbook,
book.xltx as the destination. (Open book.xlt in Excel 2003.) Add the style,
then save and close the template file. All new workbooks based on book.xltx
will contain the merged styles.
4: Create a custom format for readable data
Numbers with a few
digits are easy to read. Once you drop in that second thousands separator,
numbers become less readable, especially if your data contains lots of them.
Fortunately, a custom format can reduce the number of digits, making them
easier to read, but without changing the scale. To illustrate, we'll apply this
custom format to the values in the bottom range (so you can compare):
Select B9:E13 and click the Number group's dialog
launcher or press [Ctrl]+1 to display the Format Cells dialog.
From the Category list (on the Number tab) choose
Custom.
In the Type control, enter the $#.##,," M";
format string, as shown in Figure D. The pound sign combined
with the two comma characters displays a character in the millions
position, if one exists. The M component displays a literal M character,
to denote millions.
Click OK to see the results in Figure E.
Figure D
Add this custom format string.
Figure E
Compare the results of the custom format to the unformatted
values.
Using a Cell Style to
identify purpose helps users acclimate quicker. It also provides an easy way to
ensure consistency in an organization. For example, you might use color to
distinguish input and label cells. Using a Cell Style is an efficient way to
put that convention to work. Let's illustrate this concept by creating a Cell
Style for input cells:
Click the Home tab and then click Cell Styles in the
Styles group. In Excel 2003, choose Style from the Format menu and skip to
#3.
Click New Cell Style at the bottom of the list.
In the resulting dialog box, enter a name for the
style, such as InputCell.
Click Format. In Excel 2003, click Modify.
Click the Border tab and choose the Outline option in
the Presets section.
Click the Fill tab and choose light blue.
Click OK to view the selected formats shown in Figure
F.
Click OK again.
Figure F
We've created a Cell Style using these formats.
Anytime you want to
indicate an input cell or range, do the following:
Select the cell.
On the Home tab, click the Cell Styles option. In Excel
2003, choose Style from the Format menu.
Click InputCell as shown in Figure G and
Excel will apply that style to the selected cell or range. In Excel 2003,
choose InputCell from the drop-down list and click Add.
Figure G
You'll find the custom Cell Style in the gallery.
Using a Cell Style is
efficient for the workbook's author, but it also helps users quickly identify a
cell or range's purpose.
6: Copy formats quickly
An efficient copy
technique is a good tool, especially if you can choose what to copy on the fly.
To do so, select the destination cell or range. Then, right-click the
border and drag it to the target cell. When you release the mouse, Excel will
display the submenu shown in Figure H. Choose the Copy Here As
Formats Only option. That was easy!
Figure H
This copy trick lets you choose what to copy on the fly.
7: Add a background image
Adding a background
image to a sheet is so easy that you might be tempted to spruce up all your
sheets this way. (You'll refrain from doing so, of course.) To add an image to
a sheet's background, do the following:
Click the Page Layout tab.
Click the Background option in the Page Setup group.
Browse to the file and double-click it.
8: Quickly apply table formatting
If you select a range
and choose a built-in format from the Format As A Table drop-down, Excel (2007
and later) converts the range to a Table object. If the format works for you,
but you don't want a Table object, you can keep the format and dump the Table.
Doing so takes a few clicks, but probably fewer than formatting manually. To
format the data range quickly using a built-in Table format, do the following:
Click anywhere inside the data range.
On the Home tab, click the Format As Table drop-down
and choose a format from the gallery.
Choose appropriately when Excel asks if the range has
headers and click OK.
Click anywhere inside the table.
With the contextual Design tab current, choose Convert
To Range in the Tools group.
Click Yes to confirm the action.
You'll format a data
range with only six clicks (or a few more depending on how many times you click
the thumb in the gallery).
9: Save formats as styles
When you use the Number
Formats drop-down in the Number group (on the Home tab), you're actually applying
a style -- a style you can control. For instance, the Percent style displays
two decimal values, and you might want to inhibit all decimal values for
percentages. To do so, click the Number group's dialog launcher, click the
Number tab, choose Percentage, change the Decimal Places value to 0, and click
OK.
We tend to think of
these styles as formats set in stone, but they're not. Modify them to suit your
needs. Styles are available only to the workbook in which you save them, but
you can modify the styles in your templates.
10: Format as you go
For a quick one-time
solution, you can format some values as you enter them:
To enter currency, type a dollar sign ($) before typing
the value to apply the Currency format.
To enter most fractions, type 0. Then, press the
spacebar and type the fraction, including the slash. Excel will display
the value as a fraction and store the decimal value.
To enter a percentage, simply follow the value with a
percent sign.
