Creating a new data list in a worksheet is much like creating a worksheet table except that it has only column headings and no row headings.
The Selection and Visibility task pane enables you not only to change the layering of various graphic objects in the worksheet but also to control whether they are hidden or displayed.
If selecting gazillions of preset shapes available from the Shapes gallery doesn’t provide enough variety for jazzing up your worksheet, you may want to try adding some fancy text using the WordArt gallery opened by clicking the WordArt command button in the Text group of the Insert tab.
Clip Art is the name given to the over 150,000 ready made illustrations offered by Microsoft for use in its various Microsoft Office programs, including Excel 2007. Clip Art drawings are now so numerous that the images are classified into a bunch of different categories ranging from Abstract to Web Elements.
When creating a text box, you may want to add an arrow to point directly to the object or part of the chart you’re referencing.
Although Excel automatically embeds all new charts on the same worksheet as the data they graph (unless you create using the F11 trick), you may find it easier to customize and work with it if you move the chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook.
Although Excel automatically creates all new pivot charts on the same worksheet as the pivot table, you may find it easier to customize and work with itif you move the chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook.
After creating a pivot table, you can create a pivot chart to display its summary values graphically in literally two really simple steps:
To modify the fields used in your pivot table, first you display the Field list by following these steps:
Creating a pivot table has never been as easy as it is in Excel 2007: simply open the worksheet that contains the data list you want summarized by the pivot table, position the cell cursor somewhere in the cells of this list, and then click the Pivot Table command button on the Ribbon’s Insert tab or press Alt+NVT.
In some situations, you need to move a particular worksheet or copy it from one workbook to another.
The sheet names that Excel comes up with for the tabs in a workbook (Sheet1 through Sheet3) are, to put it mildly, not very original - and are certainly not descriptive of their function in life!
Locking workbooks in Excel is a great way to prevent yourself of breaking the whole thing when you are not suppose to touch it. Protect yourself from such actions by locking the whole thing.
After you more or less finalize a worksheet by checking out its formulas and proofing its text, you often want to guard against any unplanned changes byprotecting the document.
Certain formulas use constant values, such as a 7.5% tax rate or a 10% discount rate. If you don’t want to have to enter these constants into a cell of the worksheet in order to use the formulas, you create range names that hold their values and then use their range names in the formulas you create.
Most of the time, the stock headers and footers available on the Header buttons and Footer buttons drop-down menus are sufficient for your report printing needs.
Excel makes it easy to copy custom cell styles that you’ve saved as part one workbook into the workbook you’re currently working on. To copy custom styles from workbook to another, follow these steps:
Although you can hide worksheet columns and rows by just adjusting them out of existence, Excel does offer an easier method of hiding them, via the Hide & Unhide option on the Format button’s drop-down menu (located in the Cells group of the Home tab).
In addition to varying the increment in a series created with AutoFill, you can also create your own custom series. For example, say your company has offices in the following locations and you get tired of typing out the sequence in each new spreadsheet that requires them.
Excel offers a wide variety of keystrokes for moving the cell cursor to a new cell. When you use one of these keystrokes, the program automatically scrolls a new part of the worksheet into view, if this is required to move the cell pointer.
You need to use more than one field in sorting when the first field you use contains duplicate values and you want a say in how the records with duplicates are arranged. (If you don’t specify another field to sort on, Excel just puts the records in the order in which you entered them.)
By assigning descriptive names to cells and cell ranges, you can go a long way toward keeping on top of the location of important information in a worksheet. Rather than try to associate random cell coordinates with specific information, you just have to remember a name.
Cell names are not only a great way to identify and find cells and cell ranges in your spreadsheet, but they’re also a great way to make out the purpose of your formulas. For example, suppose that you have a simple formula in cell K3 that calculates the total due to you by multiplying the hours you work for a client (in cell I3) by the client’s hourly rate (in cell J3).
The quickest way to copy the formats from one cell to another cell or range is to use the Format Painter button in the Ribbon’s Home tab.
You can add text comments to particular cells in an Excel worksheet. Comments act kind of like electronic pop-up versions of sticky notes.
People often use borders to group a range of similar cells or simply as a way to delineate rows or columns for aesthetic purposes.
Changing the default file location in Excel 2007 is pretty straightforward. When you're opening a document in Excel, by default the Open dialog box points to the My Documents folder (Windows XP) or the Documents folder (Windows Vista) as the starting location to open documents
Sometimes you have two versions of a workbook, and you want to compare the differences in the data visually. Excel provides a convenient feature that allows you to compare two documents side by side.
If you're no longer working with a excel workbook, you may want to close the excel workbook so that you can work on other documents without distraction. Closing unneeded excel workbooks also frees memory and minimizes potential screen clutter.