MS excel is a nice spreadsheet tool from Microsoft. This post is about tips and tutorials for using MS excel 2007 more effectively and uncovering those features that some users might be unaware of
Identify Duplicate Values in an Excel Table
In Microsoft Office Excel 2007, you can easily highlight duplicate values with conditional formatting.
1. Select the list in which you want to identify duplicates.
2. Click the Home tab on the Ribbon.
3. In the Styles section, click Conditional Formatting, point to Highlight Cells Rules, and then click Duplicate Values. Pairs of duplicates will then be highlighted, and you can choose which of each pair to delete.
See How a Query Is Progressing
Because Microsoft Office Excel 2007 can now display more than 1 million rows in a spreadsheet, you can run queries that return a lot of data and therefore take a long time. By setting a query to refresh in the background, you can still work in Excel while data is being retrieved.
On the left side of the status bar is a little spinning globe, which lets you know that the query is still running. Clicking the globe opens a dialog box where you can see the queries that are being executed in the background, how long they have been running, and how many records have been returned so far. You can even stop the query if you want to.
Adding and Editing Comments
You can add and edit comments in Microsoft Office Excel by using the keyboard. To add a comment:
1. Press SHIFT+F2 to insert a comment in the current cell.
2. Type the text of your comment, and then press ESC twice.
To edit a comment:
1. Go to the cell that contains the comment and press SHIFT+F2. The comment opens.
2. Make your changes, and then press ESC twice.
Previewing Charts in Grayscale
You can preview your charts in Microsoft Office Excel before you print.
1. Open the file that you want to print, click the Office button, point to Print, and then click Print Preview.
2. On the Print Preview ribbon, click Page Setup, click Sheet, and then click Black and white. The preview will be in grayscale so that you can evaluate whether the contrast is good enough to distinguish the lines, bars, and columns.
Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar
In Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Word, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint, the title bar contains a set of icons known as the Quick Access Toolbar. If unchanged, it will have four default icons: Save, Undo, Repeat, and Quick Print. All of these will be displayed, as long as they are active.
To customize the Quick Access Toolbar:
1. Click the small arrow to the right of the toolbar, and then click More Commands to view a configuration form.
2. Click the action icon that you want to see on the toolbar, click Add, and then click OK. Notice that the icon is now part of the Quick Access Toolbar.
Changing Gridline Colors
You can change the look of your worksheet.
1. With a Microsoft Office Excel worksheet open, click the Office button, click Excel Options, and then click Advanced.
2. Under Display options for this worksheet, select the gridline color of your choice.
3. Click OK.
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