Why Excel PivotTables get messed up and how to stop it. Time and again we’ve heard from people who try PivotTables and only get nonsense tables. That’s understandable since Microsoft’s hype about PivotTable ignores the basics that we’ll cover in this article. You’ve probably seen a Microsoft demonstration of PivotTables where it looks sooooo easy. […]
How to add and remove data from a PivotTable. Thanks for the great feedback from our article on PivotTables. One concern some of you have is about adding or removing source data after the PivotTable has been created. That’s understandable because the original PivotTable releases where unclear and curiously sensitive about the data ranges used. […]
A bad example of Excel and document sharing online. Over on Reddit there’s a sad example of sharing an Office document that does no credit to the author. A husband started a diary of his attempts at, shall we say, ‘horizontal folk dancing’ plus his partner’s reasons for not wishing to join him. He then […]
A simple, practical and non-scary example of how Excel PivotTables can work for you. Excel’s PivotTables are a great feature but one that seems way too hard for most of us … so here’s a simple and practical example of how PivotTables can help. A little fear of PivotTables is understandable. It’s one of those […]
What is Delve and what does it mean for Microsoft Office? At the recent Microsoft conference there was mention of Microsoft Delve. But what the ?^%$ is ‘Delve’? It’s an enhanced search tool for your documents and online info. Not just standard Office documents but also videos, audio, links to web sites etc that are […]
Some great tips on table formatting. Joey Cherdarchuk has a nice posting on a very different table styling to the type that Microsoft prefers. Under the banner ‘Clear Off the Table’ he suggests getting rid of gridlines and colors to simplify the look of tables. In his example, Joey takes a standard Microsoft auto formatted table […]
Another easy way to get images into Word and other Office documents. Last week we mentioned a faster way to get a scanned image into Word via the ‘scan to clipboard’ option available in some scanning software. There are similar options available for copying existing image files into Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents as well […]
Can you scan a picture or document directly into Word? Back in the day, you could click a button in Word to scan a document or image and drop it into a document. Can you still do that? Alas no. Microsoft dropped its imaging services within Windows and so Word lost the scan button. The […]
How to change the date format in Excel Online The default date format in Excel has always been a mystery to newcomers and its stranger in Excel Online (the new name for Excel Web Apps). To change the default date format for display and date entry for Excel Online, go to your Microsoft account:Go to […]
The features in Excel for iPad. Here’s a look at the major features in Excel for iPad, looking over the five main tabs. The buttons will be familiar in most cases, though the underlying menus/galleries are different and limited compared to Excel for Windows or Mac. Shameless plug:Office for iPad: The Complete Guide is now available. […]
A close look at the new Formula Keyboard in Excel for iPad. One of the highlighted innovations in Excel for iPad is a dedicated Formula Keyboard which looks like this: It’s necessary because none of the supplied iPad virtual keyboards work well when you’re trying to enter Excel formula. Hunting and pecking around different symbol […]
A free way to show Microsoft Office help in other languages Office Screentips is a way to show tooltips for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and other programs. This free addon from Microsoft doesn’t interfere with how the programs work or the wording of the tabs and ribbons. Only the tooltips that appear when you hover […]
Grab high-res pictures from movies to insert into Office documents or emails. We’ll show you how to capture or grab a proper, full size, high-resolution still image from a high quality video file then paste that picture into an Office document or Outlook email. Why do this? Sometimes a video turns out badly but has […]
How to find your pictures to insert into an Office document. Even a simple thing like adding a picture to an Office document or email has subtleties and annoyances. When you choose Insert | Picture in recent versions of Office, it opens, by default, in the Picture Library. That seems sensible, at least to Microsoft. […]
Can you call a Translation service to return results in Excel? After checking out the clever European word translator, we started wondering about loading translations into Excel. It should be simple to have some code to call a web server and return a translation of a word. Office 2010 and Office 2013 have a ‘mini […]
How the Clinton ‘Saints and Sinners’ spreadsheet might look. Excel has many uses and an upcoming book talks about one of them. Apparently Bill and Hillary Clinton used Excel to maintain a list of those they like and dislike. We could not help wonder what the Clinton worksheet would look like and why they’d use […]
Why and How to remove words from the main Microsoft Office dictionary. Sometimes the supplied Office dictionary has words you don’t want or you’d like a warning about. Here’s how to put the red squiggly line under words that would otherwise be OK according to Microsoft. Why? Why would you want to remove words from […]
Comparing caffeine levels in drinks from an Excel spreadsheet. The Guardian’s Datablog has another interesting analysis, this time of caffeine levels in different foods. Sounds boring until you read that reduced sugar colas have almost double the caffeine of a regular, sugared, cola. Or 1 cup of coffee can have as much caffeine as 2 […]
Examine US public health data in Excel. One of the great things about the recent Internet is the availability of previously hidden data. Large blocks of information have been collected, checked and published online. Combine that with a tool like Excel and you can do your own analysis! Here’s just one example of what’s available […]
An example of web scraping from BestBuy.com into Excel. We’ve already talked about getting prices from the Amazon.com web site into Excel with automatic updates. Now let’s look at how to do it for BestBuy.com prices.Excel has had a method of web scraping for many versions you can find it at Data | Get External […]
