Microsoft Excel is a powerful spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft, widely used for data analysis, management, and visualization. It allows users to organize, calculate, and manipulate data in tabular form, offering a variety of tools such as formulas, functions, charts, and pivot tables to perform complex calculations and generate insights. Excel is a versatile tool used across industries for tasks ranging from simple budgeting and list management to advanced financial modeling and data science. With features like data validation, conditional formatting, and macros for automation, Excel boosts productivity and streamlines workflows, making it an essential tool for professionals and individuals alike.
Albeit Excel is a robust and sophisticated tool for enterprise-level applications, it remains simple and straightforward for everyday data management and reporting tasks. Users can easily create spreadsheets and handle basic operations with minimal effort. In this post, we’ll explore some handy tips and tricks that can significantly boost your productivity, whether you’re working with simple data or tackling more advanced projects.
Find, Replace and Update – A Typical Scenario
There are times when you want to update your worksheet through like using Find and Replace dialog. When it finds the text you entered, it focuses the cell which contains the text. Now suppose you want to change another cell of the found row and you have to do it quickly because you have lots of rows to work on. Here’s a simple code which helps you speed up your working by letting you highlight the entire row and sets focus on the required cell of that row, so that you update it, may be through typing in or pasting from some other source. The intent is, to perform the process as quickly as possible. Suppose you have a range of data in which your desired column is ‘I’, which you need to update every after the above mentioned Find and Replace.
- Click Alt + F11 to fire up VBA editor from within MS Excel.
- Double click “This Workbook” and place the following code on the right pane.
Dim PreviousRow As Long ' To store the previous row
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
' Remove highlight from the previously selected row
If PreviousRow > 0 Then
Rows(PreviousRow).Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone
End If
' Check if the entire row is selected
If Target.Columns.Count = Me.Columns.Count Then
' Highlight the selected row with a color (e.g., yellow)
Rows(Target.Row).Interior.Color = RGB(255, 255, 153) ' Light yellow
' Select the cell in column I of the selected row
Cells(Target.Row, "I").Select
' Store the currently selected row as the previous row
PreviousRow = Target.Row
End If
End Sub
This code does the simple thing, when you highlight an entire row by clicking on the row-number, which is just before the very first column. You do this when you’re done with Find and Replace for a text content and reach a row. Now when you select the row, excel will focus the Cell ‘I’ (you can change it to some other you want) to let you change/update the value.
Remember, to accommodate VBA code you must save the workbook as a macro-enabled file (with an .xlsm or .xls extension).
Data Validation with Drop-Down Lists
Data Validation allows you to create a drop-down list of predefined values for a cell, ensuring consistent data entry and minimizing errors. This is particularly useful when you need to enter repetitive or standardized data like categories, statuses, product codes, or anything bearing importance.
Let’s say you have a list of departments and you want to create a drop-down menu for selecting a department in your worksheet.
- Select the cells where you want the drop-down list.
- Go to the Data tab.
- Click Data Validation from the Data Tools group).
- In the Allow field, select List. Enter the list of valid values separated by commas (e.g., HR, Finance, Marketing) or reference a range in another sheet.
- Click OK.
This technique prevents typos or invalid data entries (users can only select from the given options). It speeds up data entry by eliminating the need to type the same values repeatedly. It’s great for maintaining data integrity in large datasets.
AutoFill for Pattern Recognition and Series Completion
Excel’s autoFill feature allows you to quickly fill in cells based on patterns, dates, or sequences. It can recognize and complete sequences like days, months, or even custom lists you define, which can be a huge time-saver when entering repetitive data.
Fill a Series (e.g., Dates, Days of the Week)
If you want to enter a series of dates or weekdays, you can use autoFill to generate the rest.
- Enter the first value of the series (e.g., a date like 01/01/2024 or Monday).
- Click and drag the fill handle (the small square at the bottom-right of the cell) over the cells where you want the pattern applied.
- Release the mouse, and Excel will automatically fill in the series (e.g., incrementing dates, or cycling through days of the week).
There’s another cool example of auto-fill. Enter for instance ‘1st October 2024’ without single-quotes in a cell. Then click and drag the fill handle down to some rows and then release it. It will populate the next rows with ‘2nd October 2024’, ‘3rd October 2024’ and so forth.
Extract Domain Names from Email Addresses
You have a long list of email addresses, like below
john.doe@example.com
jane_smith@company.org
mike_brown@xyz.co.uk
juddyfoster@mycompany.org
brian@somedomain.com
and you want to extract only the domain names (e.g., example.com) from each email. Doing this manually or using text functions would be cumbersome, but Flash Fill can do it effortlessly.
- In the first cell of the Domain Name column, type example.com. Say it is column C.
- Now select that cell or cells in column C which you have manually filled.
- Click Flash Fill from Data Tools group under Data Tab and see the magic. The values in the column C will be filled with the text after ‘@’, as you did for the first row. Excel’s auto-fill feature intelligently understood your intent and did the same for the rest of the data. Pretty quick, isn’t it?
If You’re MS Excel enthusiast then you’re also likely to be interested in reading the following posts:
- Excel Technique: How To Create Pivot Table
- Excel Technique: How To Create Chart From Pivot Table
- MS Excel Techniques: Data Validation
- MS Excel Techniques: Data Validation (Part 2)
- MS Excel Formula Magic
- MS Excel Technique: Calculation of Public Holidays in USA
- MS Excel Trick: Calculate Difference Between Two Dates
- MS Excel Tricks: How to Generate Serial Numbers
