Learn Excel from Bill Jelen with this daily 2 minute video podcast.
Do you need to temporarily see the values in a hidden column or row? Episode 330 shows you the obscure Lotus 1-2-3 trick to temporarily unhide everything with 2 keystrokes.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
If you need to remove columns from a printout, you can ask Excel to hide the columns. Episode 329 shows you how to hide, and then later unhide a column.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Today's podcast talks about a quick and easy way to keep some work areas in your spreadsheet from being noticed or printed. Episode 328 shows the trick, plus a little VB Editor trick to keep people in a certain scroll area. Finally, the episode shows you how to undock a toolbar pallet.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
You might have many worksheets in your Excel workbook. When you print the individual sheets, any page numbers that you've added to the header or footer rarely work. Episode 327 will show you how to accurately number all of the pages in your workbook.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Need to resize columns without unhiding the hidden columns? Episode 326 shows you how to adjust the standard width to solve this problem.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Are you frustrated that Excel automatically turns your e-mail address to a blue color with an underline? This looks incredibly bad when you print the worksheet on a monochrome printer. Episode 325 will show you the quick way to correct the "feature" when it happens and a way to turn it off forever.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Yesterday's podcast talked about how to use a picture for your worksheet background. However, that technique leads to a picture that won't print. There is a clever but convoluted workaround in Excel 2003. Episode 324 shows you how to add a printable background behind your print range.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Replace the plain white background in your worksheet with any image on your computer. Episode 323 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Hover over a cell and have a picture pop up. Episode 322 will show you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Change your cell comments to fun shapes. Episode 321 will show you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
How to change the name in your comments, and the annoying workaround needed if you want to have no name appear in your comments. Episode 320 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Keep your comments always visible to guide people how to use your spreadsheet. Episode 319 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Formatting Comments
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Joel & Jared send in better ways to handle getting rid of bizarre characters in your data. Episode 317 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Leave yourself helpful notes in the spreadsheet. All of the 16 million cells in an Excel spreadsheet can contain a formula and a value, but they can also contain a long note explaining how the cell works. Use these comments to remind you later of how a formula works. Episode 316 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Have you ever tried to copy a formula, only to have the resulting spreadsheet look horrible due to the copied borders? Episode 315 will show you how to solve this annoying problem.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
You have 12 reports. After formatting the first report, you would like to copy the formatting to the other reports. Episode 314 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
There is a worksheet where every row in column A is associated with three rows in column B. How did someone set this up? Episode 313 shows you the trick.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Episode 312 features a preview of one of the cool new features in Excel 2007 - data visualizations. Check out how you can use the greatly improved Condtional Formatting rules to visualize the outliers in columns of data.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Ethan calls in with today's question - how to rank a column of data, but exclude certain data points. This question made my head spin and I eventually gave up. Luckily, the FANTASTIC resource of the MrExcel Message Board provided the answer. Episode 311 shows you how to post your nearly impossible questions to the MrExcel Message board!
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
The profit waterfall chart is a great way to show how the top-line revenue translates down to bottom line profit. In Episode 310, learn how to make the bars on the chart apparently float in mid-air.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Can you predict the future with Excel? MrExcel thinks you can. See how he uses the Trendline feature on a chart to make sure that his books get done on time. Episode 309 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
Joe from Florida calls in with a great question.... He is pulling data into Excel so that he can do a pivot table. However, the system sending the data is giving him both the product ID and product description in a single column. How can the data be broken apart into two columns? Episode 308 shows you how.
posted by Bill at 9:00 AM
