Excel Shortcuts Increasing YOUR Productivity

Excel Shortcuts Increasing YOUR Productivity CompuHELP Division of Tommy Harrington Enterprises, Inc. tommy@tommyharrington.com https://www.facebook.com/tommyharringtonextremeexcel

Excel Shortcuts Increasing YOUR Productivity by Tommy B. Harrington Contents: NEW FEATURES IN EXCEL... 3 BACKSTAGE VIEW... 3 CUSTOMIZE THE RIBBON... 3 SPARKLINES... 3 PASTE PREVIEW... 4 SLICERS... 4 NAVIGATING THE TABS & RIBBONS... 5 SUM FUNCTION ADVANCED... 7 ELIMINATE THE #DIV/0! ERROR FROM A WORKSHEET... 8 DOUBLE CLICK TO AUTOFILL A RANGE... 9 BASIC RULES... 9 DAY OF THE WEEK WITH CUSTOM FORMAT... 10 CREATE DOUBLE HEADINGS IN ONE CELL... 11 FUNCTION WIZARD HELPS WRITE FORMULAS... 11 GOAL SEEK FOR FORMULA SOLUTIONS... 12 USE ROW HEIGHT TO DOUBLE-SPACE A REPORT... 14 COPY AN ENTIRE WORKSHEET... 15 MAKE A WORKSHEET INTO A WORKBOOK... 15 WRITE FORMULAS WITH VLOOKUP... 16 FIXING WORDS THAT LOOK LIKE NUMBERS... 19 USING FILTER DISPLAYS ONLY SELECTED DATA... 21 SUBTOTALS SUMMARIZE INFORMATION... 23 WORKING WITH PRINT FILES... 26 TEXT IMPORT WIZARD... 26 Copyright 2015 2 Tommy Harrington

NEW FEATURES IN EXCEL Backstage View The good old File Command (missing from 2007) is BACK! Now there s a File tab on the Ribbon and when clicked it brings up most of the commands that were attached to the 2003 File command but now it s called Backstage View. Here is where you still find Save, Open and Print commands; but they ve also added the Excel Options to this tab. Customize the Ribbon Now you can customize the Ribbon, create your own tabs, and move commands around. This action can be taken from Excel Options or by using the Customize QuickAccess Toolbar dropdown and selecting More Commands then selecting Customize the Ribbon. Sparklines Copyright 2015 3 Tommy Harrington

Sparklines are tiny charts that fit in a cell to visually summarize trends alongside data. Because sparklines show trends in a small amount of space, they are especially useful for dashboards or other places where you need to show a snapshot of your business in an easy-to-understand visual format. Paste Preview Now you don t have to UNDO you can see it before it s done. Whopee!! Slicers Slicers offer a highly visual way to filter the data in PivotTables. You use buttons to quickly segment and filter the data to display just what you need. With a Slicer, when you apply more than one filter to your PivotTable, you no longer have to open a list to see which filters are applied to the data. Other Improvements Most of the improvements in the new Excel were internal to make Excel function with larger amounts of data and perform more efficiently. Here are few of those internal improvements: Totals rows from 65,536 to 1,048,6576 Total columns from 256 to 16,384 Sorting levels from 3 to 64 Filter drop-down list from 1,000 to 10,000 Number of characters in a formula from 1,000 to 8,000 Nesting levels (sets of parenthesis) in a formula from 7 to 64 Number of arguments in a functions (like SUM) from 30 to 255 Number of items returned by Find command from 64,000 to 2,000,000 Now we will discuss the shortcuts and skills you will need when working with the new Excel versions. Copyright 2015 4 Tommy Harrington

NAVIGATING THE TABS & RIBBONS The new Ribbon-Tab interface at the top of the Excel 2010 screen is different from earlier versions. It has been designed to allow you to access the most useful features quickly. However, if you are an experienced Excel user, you may have trouble finding your favorite commands. When getting started with Excel 2010, click on a tab (like Home) and then look at the items appearing directly above the formula bar. This is first place to check for familiar commands or groups of commands. If the items displayed has a new arrow symbol (more features symbol) attached it may bring up a familiar dialog box. If you don t see the more features symbol on an item, then click on the ribbon item immediately above the ribbon item name. Going on the ribbon to Cells and then clicking the item above, Format, bring up a list of additional commands that might be needed. As in all versions of Excel there is always more than one way to get to the same dialog box. If you click on Format Cells at bottom of list shown, you open the Format Cells dialog shown previously. Copyright 2015 5 Tommy Harrington

If you are a experienced Excel user who found Excel keyboard shortcuts useful, you will be happy to know that almost all of these keyboard shortcuts work in Excel 2010. AND the shortcuts you use to run the Excel command Menu without a mouse still work. Let me give you an example of running the Excel 2003 menu commands in Excel 2010. Ctrl+c is still the shortcut for the Copy command. After using Ctrl+c you often pressed Alt e s v then you will be happy to know that this still performs the Paste Special Values command. Most of these keyboard shortcuts to menu commands still work in Excel 2010. Copyright 2015 6 Tommy Harrington

SUM FUNCTION ADVANCED Everyone knows how to use the SUM function Right? Maybe. Let s look at using the AutoSum button and what it can do for us. You can use the AutoSum button to calculate grand totals from subtotals. Remember don t have blank rows in the area of your worksheet where you want an automatic grand total. 1. Double click the AutoSum button at cells B7, B10, and B14 to produce subtotals 2. Highlight cell B15 3. Double click the AutoSum button for the grand total shown Excel 2010 will include up to 512 subtotals in your grand total. Instead of clicking the AutoSum button, you can also press ALT+= (equal sign). Copyright 2015 7 Tommy Harrington

ELIMINATE THE #DIV/0! ERROR FROM A WORKSHEET When you write a formula that divides by a cell that could contain zero, use the following method. Use the IF function to test the divisor for zero. If this cell is zero, you can have the IF function enter a 0 or blank as shown. To eliminate #DIV/0! error from formulas in a worksheet: 1. Click on cell D5 2. Type =if( 3. Click on cell B5 4. Type =0,0, 5. Click on cell C5 6. Type / 7. Click on cell B5 8. Type ) or press Enter 9. Double click on the AutoFill handle to copy it from D5 through D8 If you want the cell to be blank rather than show 0, replace Step 4 as shown below: 4. Type =0,, Copyright 2015 8 Tommy Harrington

DOUBLE CLICK TO AUTOFILL A RANGE When a cell or group of cells is highlighted, the bottom or right-most cell has a small black square on the bottom right corner. You use AutoFill normally by dragging this handle to other cells. AutoFill repeats patterns, fills from custom lists, or copies. By double clicking the AutoFill handle you can copy a formula or other information into all adjacent cells in a range. If you have numbers in cells A1 through B10, then you write the formula, =A1+B1, in C1, this formula can be copied from C1 through C10 by simply double clicking the AutoFill handle on cell C1. After double clicking the AutoFill handle, the formula is copied through cell C10. BASIC RULES The first, and perhaps most important, basic rule for building Excel Spreadsheets is: Your spreadsheet should have no completely blank columns or rows that break up your data. This does not mean you can t have blank cells or even lines that have only one entry on them. This is acceptable. I mean don t skip entire blank rows or columns for white space. You can accomplish the same look for your report by widening columns and rows as needed. If you remember and use all four basic rules when you build your spreadsheets then Excel can automatically paint your data when you sort, sum, outline, filter or perform other advanced operations. Remember: Rule 1: Rule 2: Rule 3: Rule 4: NO BLANK COLUMNS OR ROWS FOR WHITE SPACE SEPARATE REPORTS ON SEPARATE SHEETS COLUMN HEADINGS SHOULD BE IN ONE CELL BE ON SOME STUFF WHEN YOU DO A COMMAND Copyright 2015 9 Tommy Harrington

DAY OF THE WEEK WITH CUSTOM FORMAT You can display the day of the week by creating a custom format with ddd in the date format. You can enter the current computer date by pressing CTRL+: 1. Highlight the cell or cells for displaying day of the week 2. Press Ctrl+1 or click the More Features symbol on Number ribbon item from the Home tab 3. Click on Custom and click to the right of the code displayed 4. Add a space and ddd or dddd 5. Then press ENTER 6. If ######## is displayed, best-fit the column to show the date created Sample date are shown. Custom formats can also be used in the TEXT function to convert columns of data. Example: 6/30/2011 (in cell A1) can become 20110630 with =TEXT(A1, yyyymmdd ) Copyright 2015 10 Tommy Harrington

CREATE DOUBLE HEADINGS IN ONE CELL Use Alt+Enter between words in a cell places them on separate lines Column headings should be unique for certain Excel operations. When Date Shipped, Date Received, and Date Ordered must be used in a list or database, it is not good to type them on separate rows. Type Alt+Enter between two words in a cell to be used as a column heading and have them placed on two lines in the same cell. Type Order # in cell A1 1. Click on cell B1 2. Type Date 3. Press Alt+Enter (hold down the Alt and press Enter) 4. Type Ordered and press Enter This can also be done by selecting clicking the Wrap text. The cell is automatically formatted for Wrap text. FUNCTION WIZARD HELPS WRITE FORMULAS Calculate loan payment on a simple interest loan 1. Type Loan in Cell A1 2. Type Rate in A2 3. Type Term in A3 4. Type Payment in A4 5. Move to Cell B1 6. Type $90,000 (exactly as shown here) and press DOWN Key 7. Type 8.74% (exactly as shown here) and press DOWN Key 8. Type $90,000 (exactly as shown here) and press DOWN Key 9. Now here in cell B4 10. Click on the Function Wizard button Type Loan payment and click GO button. The PMT will be first in the displayed list. Select it. Copyright 2015 11 Tommy Harrington

rate, nper, and pv are required. (You can tell since they are shown in bold type.) If you have to move a dialog box in order to see part of your screen, click and drag the colored border of the box to a new location. To enter rate: Click the rate in cell B2, then type /12 and press the TAB key (/12 changes the annual interest rate shown to a monthly rate which must be done to calculate a monthly payment.) To enter nper (number of payment periods): Click on cell B3, then type *12 and press the TAB key (*12 changes years to months which must be done to calculate a monthly payment.) To enter pv (loan amount): Click on cell B1 Other items are optional. Click on the OK button to finish and enter the formula in your spreadsheet. GOAL SEEK FOR FORMULA SOLUTIONS Goal Seek is a simple tool with important uses. Using our Loan Payment example we can see the tremendous potential of Goal Seek. We would like to reverse the formula, that is, calculate the amount of loan that would give us a $600.00 monthly payment. To use Goal Seek: 1. Click on the payment amount 2. Click on Goal Seek from the What-If Analysis item on the Data tab 3. Press the TAB key 4. Type 600 and press TAB key 5. Click on cell B1 Copyright 2015 12 Tommy Harrington

6. Click OK When the Goal Seek Status screen appears, if you wish the payment amount to be $600.00, click OK and the Loan cell changes to a value of $114,126. If you want the numbers to return to their previous values, click Cancel. Goal Seek can be used to adjust any formula to a specified value by changing one cell in a spreadsheet. Note: If Goal Seek finds no solution on the first try, enter a different amount and try again. For more advanced What-If Analysis in which you can adjust more than one variable and set constraints for certain cells, use the SOLVER add-in which is shipped free with Excel. Copyright 2015 13 Tommy Harrington

USE ROW HEIGHT TO DOUBLE-SPACE A REPORT You can use this trick to double-space any report. 1. Click the Select All button 2. This selects all rows and columns the entire worksheet 3. Click on the line below the line number of row 1 4. Drag this line to the line below row 2 5. Release the mouse button Your report is now double-spaced by doubling the row height of every cell in the worksheet. Copyright 2015 14 Tommy Harrington

COPY AN ENTIRE WORKSHEET To make a copy of a sheet, hold down CTRL while you drag the sheet tab. 1. Hold down Ctrl key 2. Click and hold down mouse on sheet tab you wish to copy 3. Drag to new position 4. Release mouse button before releasing Ctrl key MAKE A WORKSHEET INTO A WORKBOOK You can create a new workbook from a sheet tab in an existing workbook. Restore the workbook to a size that allows you to see the area around the workbook window If you want to make a sheet into a new workbook, drag its tab to the area outside the workbook's window. Or If you want keep the sheet in the existing workbook and also create a new workbook with it, hold down CTRL while you drag it. 1. Restore the workbook by clicking the Restore button 2. Click and drag the worksheet tab to the desktop within the Excel window 3. Release the mouse button to remove from the old workbook and create a new workbook If you hold down the Ctrl key while dragging the sheet tab, a copy is created in a new workbook without removing it from the original workbook. Copyright 2015 15 Tommy Harrington

WRITE FORMULAS WITH VLOOKUP The Vlookup function does a great deal of work for us in Excel. It s the function that turns Excel into a relational database program. If you have information in two lists and the information in one is needed in the other; Vlookup is the tool to use. Product names from one table can be matched with sales data in another table which has only product numbers. Client names can be placed in a list that has only client number with vlookup. The example below uses vlookup to place supervisor names in ther proper place in a report automatically. If you have no valid reason not to, you should always highlight entire columns that contain your table information. Excel uses less memory to save the file, performs the lookup much faster, and gives you extra room to add more data in the future to your lookup list. For these reasons always place your lookup table on a separate worksheet tabs. NOTE: the same worksheet tab could be used to place all your lookup table if there are more than one needed in this workbook. As an example, look at the worksheet below: To write this formula place the cursor in cell H2 now follow the steps below: 1. Type =VLOOKUP( 2. Press the Left arrow key once OR click on cell E2 3. Now type a comma (, ) 4. Click on the sheet tab named Lists Copyright 2015 16 Tommy Harrington

5. Now place your mouse pointer on column letter A, hold the button down and move right to column letter C 6. Now type another comma (, ) 7. Since the column containing the supervisor names is the third column we painted, type the number 3 8. Now type another comma (, ) 9. Type the word FALSE. This forces the VLOOKUP function to return an exact match or NA 10. Now to finish your formula press ENTER You do not need to use absolute referencing when writing VLOOKUP formulas. If we copy the formula we have just written down a column the table reference will not change because we highlighted entire columns in our formula. If I needed to copy this formula to the left or right I would then add absolute referencing to permit it to be copied left or right without changing the lookup function. When we double-click the AutoFill handle to copy this formula down column H, the formula looks up the supervisor s name from our Lists sheet and, if the Sch# is not found, it returns #N/A. Copyright 2015 17 Tommy Harrington

FIXING WORDS THAT LOOK LIKE NUMBERS If you ever import data from another application or the internet, you may have a problem with words that look like numbers. If you try to sort these numbers, they do not sort numerically. If you try to use VLOOKUP they return the #N/A. Using Excel 2010 there is a simple way to fix this problem and convert the words (that look like numbers) to real numbers. 1. First highlight the entire column contain your words that should be numbers. 2. Now click the Data tab 3. Select Text to Columns 4. When the Text to Columns Wizard is displayed, simply click the Finish button to correct the problem. Copyright 2015 19 Tommy Harrington

Your words that look like numbers are now REAL numbers. Even negative number that were imported with the negative sign on the right were corrected to become REAL numbers. Copyright 2015 20 Tommy Harrington

USING FILTER DISPLAYS ONLY SELECTED DATA You can use Filter to show only select lines of data from a list. Make sure you have the cursor on one cell in the list to be filtered; and remember the cell cannot be a blank cell. From the Data tab select Filter. 1. Click on the Button at the top in the Customer column 2. First click on Select All check mark to clear all selections 3. Now select Raleigh Foods from the list displayed Copyright 2015 21 Tommy Harrington

SUBTOTALS SUMMARIZE INFORMATION Sometimes it is necessary to subtotal information in am Excel list or database. If you list invoices, purchase orders, loans, production, or shipment information, you probably need to prepare some type of subtotal report on major categories in your list. This has always been a manual process until Excel. It is very important to make sure that your database or list does not contain any completely blank rows or completely blank columns. Look at the following worksheet: To have subtotals inserted for each customer in your list: First sort the list in customer order: Click in the Customer column (You must click on a single cell between A1 and A11) Click the Sort Ascending button on the Standard toolbar This groups customers together in alphabetical order. Highlight only one cell in your database or list Select Subtotals from the Data menu Copyright 2015 23 Tommy Harrington

In the Subtotal dialog box: Mark Dept in the At Each Change In area Mark Sum in the Use Function area Mark Order, Freight and Invoice columns in the Add Subtotal To area Copyright 2015 24 Tommy Harrington

Click OK Subtotals have now been inserted in your report. Not only have subtotals been inserted below each customer group, but also on the left side you find an Outline bar. Click the 2 button in the Outline bar subtotals only. to hide detail rows and show To reveal detail rows again, click the 3 button in the Outline bar. Copyright 2015 25 Tommy Harrington

To remove all Subtotals and the Outline bar select Subtotals from the Data menu Click Remove All OR simply sort on any column other the last column you sorted on before. Subtotals is one of the most powerful and easy-to-use features of Excel. It allows you to create custom summaries with just a few clicks. WORKING WITH PRINT FILES Once you have transferred data files from your source system to your PC, you can import this data into Excel. To do this use the File Open command, change the Files of Type box to All files or Text files, change the directory, and open your file. The Text Import Wizard will appear. ASCII only With an ASCII file, what you see is what you get. When you import an ASCII or text file, you get everything headers, footers, page numbers, blank lines, meaningless rows, detail records and total rows. Some of these rows contain the information you need; others don t. Totals found From a printed report you may need only certain total rows, specific product numbers or categories, particular production lines, or information selected by certain criteria. Lines not needed Garbage must be removed. This term includes blank row, unnecessary header or footer information, any data not needed but still shown on this report. Report rows are not complete records You may encounter a problem if each line in your text file is not a complete record. For example, the customer name and account number may appear once at the beginning of an order even if the order contains many different products. To use this type of data you must repeat the customer information of every line with each product ordered. Page headers may contain the only reference to a division or branch office. This needs to be repeated on each detail line. TEXT IMPORT WIZARD The data must be converted in order to use it in an Excel worksheet. Excel provides a tool for importing text files the Text Import Wizard. This tool works well for importing fixed width and delimited files. Copyright 2015 26 Tommy Harrington

Columns in your report file may not be uniform; that is, not neatly placed down a column. For example, on one row the customer account number starts at the 5 th character and on the very next row it begins in the 25 th position. With Excel alone it is difficult to correct this problem. The Text Import Wizard also provides no help in selecting only certain rows of data, but imports ALL rows. Let s use the Text Import Wizard to import a file. Text Import Wizard You can use the Text to Columns feature not only to import information from other programs and main frames, but to break single column information into multiple columns. Copyright 2015 27 Tommy Harrington

The data below needs to be separated into useful information. You can use Import Text Wizard to separate this data into column and rows. 1. From the Office Options button Select Open 2. From the file type dropdown in the bottom right of the Open screen select Text Files 3. Move through your files and folders to find the correct text file then click Open 4. When Opened the Text Import Wizard displays the top five rows of your file Copyright 2015 28 Tommy Harrington

5. Excel guesses that this is a Fixed width file and marks it as such. 6. Click the Next button 7. Move column lines to allow for correct field width if necessary 8. Click the Next button Copyright 2015 29 Tommy Harrington

9. On the screen you can mark columns of data to Skip if you do not need to import this column. Tip: be sure to mark any column with leading zeros as Text. 10. On this screen click the Finish button Data is now in columns and rows. You may still need to delete unwanted rows. Copyright 2015 30 Tommy Harrington

Index # #DIV/0! error... 8 A Alt+Enter... 11 ASCII... 27 AutoFill... 8, 9 AutoFilter... 21 AutoSum... 7 B Basic Rule... 9 basic rules... 9 C current computer date... 10 custom format... 10 D Data menu... 24, 27 delimited... 27 double-space... 14 F Files ASCII... 27 delimited... 27 fixed width... 27 text... 27 fixed width... 27 Function Wizard... 11 G Goal Seek... 12, 13 grand totals... 7 I IF function... 8 N new workbook from a sheet... 15 O Outline bar...26, 27 P Print files... 27 R Rate...11, 12 ribbon... 5, 10 S Sort Ascending... 24 Subtotal...25, 26 subtotals... 7 Subtotals...24, 27 SUM function... 7 Sumif Function... 19 T text file... 27 Text Import Wizard...27, 28 Text Import Wizard Text to Columns... 28 Text Import Wizard Text to Columns... 29 Text Wizard... 29 Toolbars customize... 3, 5 V vlookup... 16 Vlookup... 16 W Wrap text... 11 Copyright 2015 31 Tommy Harrington

If your organization needs training, application development, or consulting on Microsoft Office software Excel, Access, Word, and PowerPoint; for free estimate on any project please contact: Notes: Tommy Harrington Email: tommy@tommyharrington.com Copyright 2015 32 Tommy Harrington