Episode 540 - DATE EXTRADONAIRE

I love the DATE function. While some Excel functions are rather picky, the DATE function can handle just about anything that you throw at it. Want to know the 35th day of January? No problem. Want to know the 17th month of 2008? Easy. Want to know why this matters? Well, watch Episode 540 for a cool trick with the DATE function.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 539 - Is it your birthday?

George would like to mail birthday cards to all of his customers. He has date of birth in his database, but unfortunately, comparing =TODAY() to a birthday in 1942 doesn’t provide a lot of information. In Episode 539, we take a look at the DATE function used to solve this problem.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 538 - Overlapping 2007 Charts

Peter sends in a question that relates back to Episode 444. In that podcast, I showed how to change the gap width in Excel 2003 to have two columns stacked on top of each other. Peter wonders how to do this in Excel 2007. This is a great opportunity to show off a change in Excel 2007’s charting engine. While Excel 2003 required you to open and close the Format dialog box repeatedly, you can now format everything on the chart from the new modeless Format dialog box in Excel 2007. Episode 538 shows you how!

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book Charts and Graphs for Microsoft Office Excel 2007.

Episode 537 - Appending Sequence

Ben asks how he can automatically append a sequence number to duplicate values in his spreadsheet. Episode 537 shows how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 536 - Indeterminate Substitution

Robbie calls in today to ask how to add a hyphen at an unknown position in each cell. For example, whenever Excel finds a period, add a dash. There are three solutions to this problem. Episode 536 compares them all.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 535 - Sorting by Month

Mario writes in with a comment about Episode 507 on sorting text that looks like dates. No need to jump thru hoops to convert the data. In Episode 535 Mario suggests an easier way to sort by month.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 534 - Counting X’s

Kyle is trying to build a worksheet to create practice SAT tests for his students. His IF formula to mark answers as correct is working fine, but the COUNT function can’t seem to count the correct answers. Episode 534 troubleshoots this function.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 533 - Upper Case

Gary asks about converting text from lower case to upper case an vice versa. Episode 533 shows you how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 532 - Favorites Playlist

Doug sends in a question today about managing his growing collection of netcasts. Instead of an Excel tip today, Episode 532 shows you how to set up a smart playlist of just your favorite Excel tips.

Download a new two minute video every workday to learn a new tip!

Episode 531 - Custom Themes

It is easy to create a custom theme in Excel 2007. This theme might contain custom colors, fonts, and effects. Episode 531 shows you how to define a theme and share it with others.

This blog is the video netcast companion to the new book, Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the tips from the book!

Episode 530 - Theme Effects

In Excel 2007, a theme is comprised of fonts, colors, and effects. Episode 530 helps to decode the information in the effects thumbnails.

This blog is the video netcast companion to the new book, Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the tips from the book!

Episode 529 - 2007 Themes

Rather than having to customize the color palette, Office 2007 offers 20 built-in color schemes. You can change the document theme in just a few clicks. Episode 529 shows you how.

This blog is the video netcast companion to the new book, Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the tips from the book!

Episode 528 - Copying Colors

Once you have a custom color palette set up in Excel, see how you can easily copy it to other existing workbooks. Episode 528 shows you how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 527 - Color Templates

Rather than modify the 56 colors for every new workbook, Episode 527 shows you how to save your color choices in a template so that they will be inherited by all future workbooks.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 526 - Color Palette

Excel 97 through Excel 2003 was limited to 56 colors, but you don’t have to keep the 56 colors that Microsoft chose. You can customize the colors for any workbook. Episode 526 shows you how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 525 - MegaFormula Redux

Gary sent in a better way to build MegaFormulas. Gary must be catching up on old podcasts, because he sent a note about Episode 387. Compare my way and Gary’s way of building MegaFormulas in Episode 525.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 524 - Final Saturday of Month

Ammar from Iran sends in a question about how to find the last Saturday of any given month. Episode 524 shows how to use a couple of analysis toolpak functions to solve this problem.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 523 - Flight Numbers

JJ writes in with a question from Alaska. His home office keeps sending him data with airline in column A and flight number in column B. In order to use this data, he needs to join both values into a single cell. Episode 523 shows how to use concatenation to solve the problem.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 522 - Finding Numerics

The Find command seems to work perfectly with text, but always has problems with finding numeric values. It is possible to find numbers with the Find command in Excel, but you have to know some fairly arcane steps. Episode 522 shows you how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 521 - Show Positives

Dermot sends in today’s question; a spreadsheet is showing zeroes as a dash, and positive numbers with a plus sign! It turns out that the custom number format has four zones, where you can specify different formatting for positive, negative, zero, and text values. Episode 521 shows you how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Episode 520 - Custom Sort

Sometimes, your company tradition will force you to sort into neither ascending or descending sequence. Episode 520 shows you how to set up a custom sort in Excel 2003 or Excel 2007.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel and Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the tips from the books!