Articles

Test conditional formatting with dummy formulas

If you've ever tried to apply conditional formatting with a formula, you know the hardest part is making sure the formula actually works. Here's an easy way to test the formula, before you use it in a rule.

Conditional Formatting

5 formulas to highlight dates by month and year

How do you figure out what formula to use? A teardown of 5 good formulas you can use to highlight dates based on a common month and year value using conditional formatting.

Highlight dates in the same month and year

Excel has a built-in conditional formatting rule that will highlight dates that occur "this month". But what if you want to highlight dates in the same month and year for any date?

Conditional Formatting

Cool things you can do with conditional formatting

In this article, we look at some cool ways that you can use Excel's conditional formatting feature to quickly visualize important data.

Pivot Tables

5 pivot tables you probably haven't seen before

In this article, we take a short tour of some "unconventional" pivot tables you probably haven't seen before. These are interesting pivot tables created to analyze something other than sales data.

Pivot Tables

Can pivot tables save your job?

This article is for those of you who don't get pivot tables. Maybe you tried pivot tables once, and didn't see what the big deal was, or maybe you got frustrated when a pivot table wouldn't behave. They can be that way.

Pivot Tables

Pivot Table Tips

Many Excel experts believe that Pivot Tables are the single most powerful tool in Excel. This article provides more than 20 tips you should know to work productively with Excel Pivot Tables.

Modeling

The value of improving a skill (a simple model)

In this article, we take a look at a simple model that calculates the time that could be saved by doing a task or activity with more skill. The goal is to visualize whether it makes sense to invest in getting better at a skill.

Shortcuts

The 54 Excel shortcuts you really should know

A list and description of just over 50 important Excel shortcuts you should know if you spend a lot of time in Excel. This is a summarized version of the more than 200 shortcuts that are available in Excel for both Windows and Mac platforms.

Productivity

Collapse the ribbon when you don't need it

Does it ever bother you that the ribbon sits up there at the top of the workbook, smugly hogging a bunch of space while you toil away in your (smaller) worksheet below?

Pivot Tables

How to group a pivot table by age range

In this article, we look at how to use a pivot table to group voting data by age. This is a good example of the "group by number" feature that all pivot tables share.

Modeling

Calculating the break-even point for Google Adwords

In this article, we build a model using the seldom-seen Data Table to visualize at what point an Adwords campaign becomes profitable.

Shortcuts

How to use Mac function keys with Excel

A summary of how to use Function keys on a Mac with Excel and other applications, including information on system defaults and how to change these defaults.