The simple and easiest way to convert text dates to Excel dates is using Text to Columns on the Data tab. It’s a simple ‘one off’ method that works well and takes you through the steps. If you need something more automated, for new text dates entered from time-to-time use
Today, 17 October, is Spreadsheet Day and Microsoft has joined the event with a fun example of what Excel is capable of. #spreadsheetday #spreadsheets #excel Microsoft Excel at Office-Watch.com The hidden trap in Excel’s DateDif()Better Excel formula converts days into Years, Months, DaysFour ways to make text fit in an
Type the Yen ¥ currency symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Yen is used for Japanese currency and the Chinese Renminbi / Yuan. Microsoft Excel also offers the Yen symbol for Mongolia even though the tögrög currency uses another
Excel Array formulas are useful for getting the result from a filtered list quickly with a single, simple formula. Continuing our series on Excel array formulas. Here’s a list of stocks with industries aka Table3. How many stocks are in the ‘Shop’ industry? The array formula in G5 has the
Array formulas are an important part of Excel and they are a lot more important now that dynamic array formulas are around. Don’t ignore arrays because they’re an unavoidable part of Excel for everyone. This is the start of a series to help you understand arrays in Excel. At the
Here’s a better Excel formula for converting a number of days into text for year, months and days. This formula leaves out zero values and proper singular/plural (e.g. not “1 Year 0 Months 27 Days” but “1 Year 27 Days”). And we’ll show an even better way to write the
If you look in folders that contain Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) you might see the occasional .tmp file. What are they? Could they be useful? How to look inside. Can they be safely deleted? The quick answers are: probably Word or Office document remnants, could be handy to recover
Here’s your four choices for making text fit within an Excel cell. About wrapping text, adding line breaks and merging cells in Excel. There are plenty of options to fit text in Excel but not all of them are obvious. At first, when you type text in a cell it
A small but very welcome change to the File menu in Office 365 for Windows to handle the overflow at the bottom of the window. It’s one of those changes that Microsoft doesn’t promote or even mention. Maybe because it’s quite small or perhaps because it fixes an embarrassing design
Did you know that the U.S has two feet? Meaning two different measurements for the term ‘foot’? That got us wondering how Excel’s Convert() handled the standard ‘foot’ and the US Survey ‘foot’. Excel Convert() supports the International Standard Foot and, indirectly, the US Survey Foot. America Has Two Feet.
Here’s how to apply the same formatting, borders and picture styles to more than one picture or graphic in Word, PowerPoint or Excel. There’s an unexpected and easy way to do it. Picture Format tools don’t have custom styles (Microsoft please note) only the in-built pre-sets. If you want to
Put the Reference Mark ※ into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Reference Mark ※ or reference symbol is used in Asian writing (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) like the Asterix * in western languages. It marks some additional notes to text. It’s called
Why you must use the Microsoft Office Document Inspector … and why you can’t completely trust it. The Office Document Inspector is an important tool for anyone who shares or sends out Office documents. It helps prevent legal troubles and personal embarrassment. Inspect Document is only in Office for Windows
A new Excel tool might help with very large, sluggish workbooks but don’t expect a lot despite the promising name “Check Performance”. It took us just minutes to find some undocumented strangeness in this cautious addition to Excel. “Check Performance” looks for unnecessary formatting, metadata and styles that might be
Quickly type the Euro € currency sign into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Euro € symbol is easy on some keyboards but for other keyboards there’s no specific key for Euro. You can [copy content=”€” text=”click here to copy Euro
What is the Questioned Equal To ≟ symbol and how to type in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. ≟ is a question mark above an equals sign. It isn’t properly used in equations but can be useful to show an
Function keys can be a hassle, specially on smaller laptop keyboards without a dedicated F key row. Happily there are two alternatives for Microsoft Office user plus another for both Windows or Mac generally. Many laptop users avoid the Function keys because they aren’t directly available on the keyboard. Instead
There are two ways to hide Excel cell contents that you don’t want visible, but still available able to use in calculations. It’s another case of Office having an official and unofficial hiding option. Here we’re talking about hiding individual cells or ranges. There are separate options for hiding row,
Microsoft has released the latest Office 365 for Windows software for Insiders. There’s only one truly new feature. Two other ‘features’ are really bug fixes! The Office Insider twitter feed promotes the latest Insiders release like this: It’s overstating things more than a bit as Microsoft’s own listing of changes
Let() is a new function in Windows and Mac versions of Excel 365 and Excel 2021 (plus Excel Online) which is popular with makers of long, complicated functions. The function lets you name a temporary variable to use within a formula. That might seem a strange thing to do but
Type the Division ÷ symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Division ÷ symbol is an alternative to the / character. Made up of a dash and two dots. ÷ symbol isn’t recommended these days. It’s not universally known and
Some good advice for better spreadsheets from the distinguished science journal, Nature, (established 1869!) who have tips about the right way and wrong way to use Excel or Google Sheets. The article Six tips for better spreadsheets opens with a horror story about a list of latitude/longitude “It was a
We’ve completed our series on ‘Hidden’ options in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. How to hide text, images, cells, slides etc within documents. Hiding is a useful option and avoids deleting content that might be needed later. It lets you make a different version of a document/sheet/deck without the hassle of
Excel shows midday or noon as 12:00 PM which doesn’t suit everyone, here’s how to change the defaults to a word such as ‘Midnight’ or any other time label you’d like. ABC News in Australia delves into the argument about showing 12 PM – There is no such time as