Learn Excel from Bill Jelen with this daily 2 minute video podcast.
Do you have to re-create charts each month? Learn how to drag and drop new data to an existing chart. This tip will save you hours each month! Episode 307 shows the details.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Why do pie charts look so horrible? Episode 306 will show you how to take your pie charts for a spin. Trust me - they will look better after this trick.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Why do Excel charts look so horrible? Learn how to format any element of a chart. Episode 305 will show you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Charts can exist either on their own chart sheet or embedded in an existing worksheet. Episode 304 will show you how to change the location of a chart from one place to another.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
This is the first of several podcasts about creating charts or graphs in Excel. Today, learn the secret trick to create a chart in one click. Episode 303 will show you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Microsoft Word gurus suggest using Styles in Microsoft Word. Although it is obscure, you can use styles in Excel as well. Episode 302 shows an interesting way to use cell styles in your worksheet.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Make your boring black and white spreadsheets come alive with just a few clicks. Episode 301 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Create a simple data form to help when entering data. Episode 300 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
I have this data and I am trying to replace the spaces. Every time I use Edit - Replace, it tells me there are no spaces to replace. What the heck is going on? You might have run into this, if you've ever copied data from a web page. Episode 299 shows you how to deal with these. Learn the CODE, CHAR, and SUBSTITUTE functions.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Would you like to keep your web queries fresh? Pull new data from the web every minute, even updating formulas in adjacent columns. Episode 298 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
How to control the options for your web query. Keep your web data automatically updated in Excel files every time you open the Excel file. Episode 297 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Rather than copy and paste data from your browser to Excel, set up a simple web query in Excel to automatically pull your data into Excel. Episode 296 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
This is a fairly wild concept. Sometimes you want to link to an external Excel file, but you run into the limit that your formula can not refer to more than 10,000 cells in the external file. As an alternative, use Microsoft Query to retrieve records from the closed Excel file. Episode 295 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Instead of creating Pivot Tables, create your summary as a flexible chart. Episode 294 shows you how to create a pivot chart.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Unlike the calculated field in yesterday's podcast, calculated items are a horrific feature that should be avoided at all costs. Episode 293 shows why this feature does not work and offers a workaround.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Add a calculated field to a pivot table. Episode 292 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Szilvia from California calls in today with a great question.... How could I have written an entire book on pivot tables and never mentioned the Show Pages feature? We will try it out on today's podcast and I have to admit, it is one of the cooler features in pivot tables. Basically, if you need to create a report for every customer in your database, you can do it with the Show Pages feature in the pivot table. Episode 291 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
I use this trick all of the time. Say that you have two versions of a list. You have the current version and an old version. You want to see what changed between the two versions. Rather than try to build complicated VLOOKUP formulas, use a simple pivot table to compare the two lists. Episode 290 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
If there is one thing that bugs me about pivot tables it is the STUPID outline view that Microsoft uses for pivot tables with 2 or more fields in the row area. Come on, Microsoft - blank cells are evil. Why do you insist on filling column A with blank cells? In today's podcast, I attempt to shake off the post-holiday picnic cobwebs and demonstrate FOUR arcane steps needed to fix this maddening problem. Episode 289 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Sometimes you need to take the results of your pivot table to another system. There are a few problems with the default outline view of a pivot table. First - the subtotal rows can get in the way, particularly when you have two or more fields in the row area. Episode 288 will show you how to remove subtotals from from a field.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
