Auto updating your Excel Charts
How to make an Excel chart that changes as you add more cells or rows is really simple these days. Forget all the old stuff about named ranges or changing the Chart data. Setup your Excel list correctly and any linked charts will update automaticall. In a recent article we looked at making a chart […]
Date formatted charts in Excel
The secret to a timeline chart in Excel is the data. Emily writes asking “How can I make an Excel chart with dates on the X axis with a proper time scale – even if the dates aren’t regular? “ We could not understand Emily’s question until we asked for more details. Making a date […]
Double Key encryption coming to Microsoft 365
Microsoft is making an important step towards cloud storage security with the public preview of Double Key Encryption. That means, for the first time, Microsoft customers can secure their data from access, even by Microsoft itself. All the ‘secure’ cloud storage from Microsoft can be accessed by Microsoft. For all their talk about security, the […]
Excel Subscriptions Manager
With all the subscription offerings available (Netflix, HBO, Disney, CBS, Apple, Google, Amazon, Office 365 etc), here’s a way to manage them all from Excel. Along the way we’ll show you some interesting Excel features. We were inspired by Brian X Chen in The New York Times, writing about how easy is it to sign […]
Subscriptions Manager for Excel 2007-2016
We’re happy to release a new version of our Subscriptions Manager that’s compatible with Excel 2007-2016. Subscriptions Manager is a way to list and manage the many online plans we sign up for; HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Spotify and so many more. You can track who pays (in a family) and payment method (card, direct debit […]
Gene names changed to stop confusing Excel
The names of genes are being changed just to stop Excel confusing them with dates during the import process. We’ll explain two ways Excel already works to avoid the geneticist’s problem. Genes named like MARCH1 and SEPT1 which Excel converts into dates when imported the wrong way, usually directly via a CSV text file. Office […]
Excel’s General problem that messes up what you type
Why does Excel change what people type or import, sometimes in ways they don’t want? It’s the General cell format that messes with what you type or import. It’s the default cell format ‘General’. It’s top of the Formats list and most of us haven’t given it a second thought. Microsoft short explanation is ‘No […]
Office 2010 – not long before it ‘dies’
Microsoft Office 2010 ends support later this year but there’s no need to panic. Here’s what to do, when to change from Office 2010 and what to replace it. Office 2010 countdown [ycd_countdown id=”31774″][/ycd_countdown] Office 2010 ends support on Tuesday, 13 October 2020 All the Office 2010 programs will keep working. No change there. Tuesday, […]
Excel speaks aloud cells
Excel can speak the numbers, dates and text in cells. It’s a feature that’s been hiding in Excel since Office 2007 through to the latest Excel 365 for Windows. Speak in Excel is like Word’s Speak but with a few useful spreadsheet options. The audio options are mostly intended for proofing or ‘read back’ of […]
Excel eats Cake
The Excel team has joined the current ‘Cake’ meme with a new Cake() function in Excel. Hilarity ensues … Source: Twitter Ho ho, very funny, it is to laugh. Most people took the message in good spirit with one person implementing it in VBA That code really works. ChrW() returns the character with that Unicode […]
2020 – Year of the Icon?
2020 will be remembered for many things (big sigh) but from a design viewpoint, it could be the Year of the Icon. Many of those graphics are available either in Office directly or imported from elsewhere – we’ll show you both. Everywhere you go there are signs reminding us of the new life we have […]
SLK files used to hack into Excel, again
Despite fair warnings, Microsoft has allowed an old Excel format .SLK to get past their email security and infect Excel for Windows computers. As reported by Avanan, criminals have found a way to bypass the email security for Office 365 hosted mailboxes (possibly Outlook.com as well), allowing an infected email attachment to reach Microsoft’s customers. […]
Quick Fix for Office display problems
How to quickly fix display problems in Microsoft Office. When Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook don’t show up on the screen correctly. It doesn’t happen often but occasionally Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook open but as all grey. Clicking around the screen displays just a ribbon or menu but not the whole program. If other […]
Excel Table Cards for smartphones
Excel for iPhone and Android smartphones have a useful extension of Excel Tables called Cards. It’s a better way to view tables on a smaller screen with larger text and easier editing. Instead of scrolling right/left on the small screen, all the info for a single table row can be seen and edited as a […]
Tricks inside Money in Excel
Microsoft’s Money in Excel is worth looking at even if you don’t want to use it. There are some useful features and formula tricks you can use in your own workbooks. Group Columns Grouping columns or rows is normally for bringing together lists rows or columns. Grouping days into a week or weeks into a […]
Animated GIF’s coming to Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Animated GIF support is coming (finally!) to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We discovered the new feature in a new Insiders build, Microsoft hasn’t announced anything. Here’s an animated GIF playing in Word 365. Paste or Insert an animated GIF now has play/pause buttons included (bottom left corner). The animation starts playing automatically when inserted. […]
