Tag Archives: Functions

Macros: Making Excel even more capable

There are several hundred functions on Excel, which can mostly be combined to produce thousands more, but sometimes even they cannot cope with requirements. Excel’s programming language, VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is there to help you achieve the missing capabilities, … Continue reading

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Good design – introduction

Spreadsheets mean that things can be tried out very quickly; and changes and improvements made (almost) immediately. However, in a ‘mature’ spreadsheet, the only changes should be to the data, with the functionality locked down and well documented. There are … Continue reading

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There’s history and history!

The other day I saw an article on the web by a writer who seemed to think that VLOOKUP was new to Excel 2013. Strange, I thought: I was using it in Lotus 123 in 1990. Now that is only … Continue reading

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IF statements – multiple levels

IF statements really bring power to your spreadsheets. And multiple IFs, even more so. Before 2007, the limit was 7 nested IFs in one statement. My advice was to avoid anything more than 3, because it would make your head … Continue reading

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Automatic Date and Time in Excel

If you want to put today’s date into your spreadsheet, then use =today(). But remember this is dynamic, which means it will change. Thus it’s not much use for dating a document, because tomorrow’s another day! To get the current … Continue reading

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The Σ (Sum) button in Excel

When using Sum (Σ) in Excel, it tries to guess what you want to add. This is shown by the ‘marching ants’ around the cells. If the guess is correct, then press to accept; if not drag to create your … Continue reading

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IF statements – very useful, but take care!

IF statements really bring power to your spreadsheets. And multiple IFs, even more so. There are two main problems: Firstly, they can get very difficult to understand, particularly if you are working on someone else’s spreadsheet, or even your own … Continue reading

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