It is time for the fourth and final Excel tutorial of this Excel week. The tutorials that we’ve covered this week are some pretty cool ones. The first was the tutorial with a formula for checking future dates followed by the Excel tutorial for using the TEXT and the TODAY functions and we discussed yesterday a tutorial for combining the TEXT and the NOW functions.

In today’s Excel tutorial I want to show you how you can combine 3 columns that hold different date values into one column.

It’s a pretty simple formula but its Friday so I don’t believe it’s a real problem. Entering all the data in the spreadsheet takes up most time.

• First you’ll need to create a spreadsheet that looks similar to this one.

• Select Cell D2:D8
• And type in the following formula =DATE(A2;B2;C2).

• Then Click CTRL+ENTER and you’re done, you’re spreadsheet should look like this.

And that’s it for another Excel Tutorial week. I really hope you’ve enjoyed this week and that you’ve learned something. Next week we’ll continue with our normal Tips and Tricks. Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you all on Monday.

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This next Excel Tip and Trick is a follow-up of the article that I wrote last week about using the same formatting for multiple excel cells. I’m now using also using the Format Painter Tool. In the first article I explained how to copy the format to the second cell and how we can drag the formatting to the cell next to it.

This works great unless the cells don’t connect. I’m using the Format Painter Tool in this Excel Tip and Trick to apply to same formatting in non connecting cells.

For this example I used the same table that I used as the earlier article.

• If you want to use the same formatting on “random” cells you need to click on cell A1.
• And double click on the Format Painter Tool.
• Now you can click on the cells you want to apply this formatting on.

As you can understand this is quite random and I know it doesn’t make any sense but it’s only for the example;).

You can also apply the Format Painter for columns or rows.

Now I want the same formatting as row 1.

• Now click on the 1 on the right side of the spreadsheet.
• Click on Format Painter
• And click on 5

And you’re done.

I hope you all like this Excel Tip and Trick. I’ll see all you next time.

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Here’s an Excel Tutorial to show a drop down list to auto fill your cells.

·         First you’ll need to select the cell that you want to auto fill (in this case B7)

·         Press ALT+DOWN ARROW

Now a list should appear with all the entries from your B column.

·         If you now release the buttons then you can use the UP- and DOWN ARROW.

·         Select your entry this way.

·         And press ENTER

And you’re done.

Danielle I hope this Tip and Trick will help you. It’s a huge time saver and I use this Excel Tip and Trick pretty much always. I hope you all liked it and I’ll talk to you all on Monday, enjoy the weekend!!

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It’s the second day of the Excel Tutorial week. Yesterday was Monday and Monday is of course the day that we need to take it a bit slow and we did so with an Excel Tutorial with the formula for checking future dates.

Today we are taking it a bit further. It is still kind of a easy Excel formula but it’s too warm you up a bit for later this week, when we are really starting to use Excel for calculating with dates and time spans.

But before I begin the actual Excel tutorial I need to explain something that you’ll need to know about Excel for later this week. Microsoft Excel saves a date as a sequential number. Excel has to do that otherwise the program can’t use the value to calculate with. The sequential numbering started on January 1, 1900. So January 1, 1900 has the value 1 and May 27, 2008 has the value 39594 because it’s 39594 days after January 1, 1900.

Today I want to show you an Excel tutorial for using the TEXT and the TODAY functions.

• First you’ll need to type the formula =TODAY() in cell B1.

• The project will take you ten days so you’ll need to type in cell B2 the formula =TODAY()+10.

• Now you’ll need to select cell A3 and type the following ="The project starts on "&TEXT(B1;"MM/DD/JJJJ")&" and starts on "&TEXT(B2;"MM/DD/JJJJ") .

• After you pressed enter you’re spreadsheet should look like this.

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A while back I showed you how to create Formula to Count all the Empty Cells. Not only can it be useful to have a little help counting all the empty cells but an Excel Formula to count all the cells that contain Text and numbers can be just as helpful. This very useful Microsoft Excel Tutorial will do that for you.

This is how you use the Excel “Count” and “Counta” function.

We are going to use two Excel functions within this formula. We are using “Count” for all numeric cells and “Counta” for the text cells. 

• Create some data in Cell A1:A15 and leave some cells blank.
• Select Cell B1 and type in the formula =COUNTA(A1:A15)-COUNT(A1:A15)
• Press Enter and you’re done.

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The gridlines are probably one of the most useful tools in Microsoft Excel, especially when you’re designing an nice Excel worksheets.

On the other hand it can be very useful sometimes to have no grid lines at all in your Excel Workbook.

In this Excel Tip and Trick I’m showing you how to loose the lines in your Excel Spreadsheet.

For loosing the Gridlines in MS Excel 2007 you need to take the following steps.

• Go To View
• Now uncheck Gridlines

And that’s it’s.

To turn of the Gridlines in your Excel 2003 spreadsheet you need to take the following steps.

• Go To Tools
• Select Options
• And select the View tab (Dutch print screen says Weergave)
• Uncheck the Gridlines (Dutch print screen says Rasterlijnen)
• And click OK

I hope you all enjoyed this Excel Tip and Trick, talk to all you tomorrow.

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It can be useful if you are working in a large Excel Spreadsheet to count the empty cells. This is a Microsoft Excel Tutorial to show you how to use this Excel Formula. I hope you’ll enjoy this quick Tip.

How to use the “Countblank” Function. 

• Create some data in Cell A1:A15 and leave a few cells blank.
• Select Cell B1 and type in the formula =Countblank(A1:A15)
• Press Enter

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When you click on this link you’ll find the World of Office Download Page, this is also where you can find the eBook.

Article: Excel allows you to change the order of worksheets within a workbook at any time. There are two ways of achieving this, the first of which is simply to drag the tabs representing each worksheet left or right. As well dragging individual tabs, it is also possible to highlight several tabs and drag them all at the same time.

Not only can you move worksheets around within the same workbook, it is also possible to move worksheets from one workbook to another. For example, suppose we have a workbook containing a worksheet for each month of the year ("Jan", "Feb", etc.) and that we now would like to split this into four smaller workbooks, one for each quarter: the first containing "Jan", "Feb" and "Mar"; the second containing "Apr", "May" and "Jun"; and so on.

To keep the number of sheets we will end up with in each workbook to a minimum, we could begin by reducing the default number of worksheets Excel will give us in each new workbook. To do this, we click on the Office Button and then choose Excel Options. In the section labelled "When creating new workbooks Include This Many Sheets", we reduce the number to one. We can now create four sheets by clicking four times on the new sheet icon on the Quick Access Toolbar.

Each of our new workbooks has one sheet, which is the minimum that Excel will allow. We can access these new workbooks by clicking on the View Tab and accessing the Switch Windows drop-down menu. The first method of moving worksheets from one workbook to another is to drag and drop. To do this, we will need to see all the workbooks simultaneously. Excel has a special command for doing this. In the View Tab, click on the Arrange All button and choose "Tiled". Excel will then present each of the workbooks in a miniature window, allowing us to see all of the open workbooks simultaneously.

The next step would be to select the three sheets pertaining to the first quarter: we click on "Jan", hold down the Shift key and click on "Mar". We can then drag the selected sheets across to the window of any of the new workbooks. We can then repeat this exact same procedure for the other quarters.

As was mentioned earlier, the minimum number of sheets which you can have in a workbook is one. Therefore, when we have moved the final three sheets, the window of the original workbook will simply disappear. Naturally though, the last saved version of the document will still exist.

The final step would be to delete the unwanted sheet from each of the four new workbooks. Having done this, to leave the split screen view and return to normal mode, we simply maximise any of the windows.

By the way, the second way of copying sheets from one workbook to another is to use the Move or Copy Sheets command. You will find this command in the Format drop-down menu in the Cells section of the Home Tab or by right-clicking on the selected sheet tabs. As well as moving sheets, this command also allows you to create a copy at another location.

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When changing the appearance of text within an Excel worksheet, you have the choice of working on the entire cell or at the text level. To work at the cell level you simply highlight one or more cells and choose your formats. The formats that you choose will then apply to all text within the cell or cells.

For example, if you wish to change the font size of your data in Microsoft Excel, you can of course use the drop-down menu next to the font name and choose one of the preset sizes. Another method of changing the size is to use the Grow Fond and Shrink Font buttons located on the right of the font size. These two buttons simply use the same preset sizes available on the preset size drop-down. Having activated the font size text box, you can also use the cursor keys on your keyboard to move through different sizes. Yet another method is to enter a particular size then press the enter key. When you do so, you are permitted to enter decimals, such as 10.5.

In a similar way, when you wish to choose a font, you can highlight the current name and begin to type the name of font you have in mind, for example Times new Roman. Once you have typed enough of the name to avoid ambiguity, the font name will be displayed and you simply press the Enter key.

Colour can be applied in two ways in your worksheets either as a background to the cell or to the text inside the cell. Because background colour applies to the cell it can’t be applied at the text level. With the advent of Themes in Excel 2007, Microsoft have made it very easy to come up with colour combinations which look good together.

To work at the text level, you need to go into Edit mode. You can enter Edit mode in a couple of ways: the first is to double-click on any cell; the second is to click once on the cell and then click anywhere in the formula bar. You will know when you’re in Edit mode by the appearance of the Cancel and Enter buttons on the left of the formula bar.

When working in Edit mode, you can highlight individual characters and change their attributes. For example, if a cell contains the text “Google”, you could highlight each letter individually and change it to the colour used in the Google logo.

This facility of having different formats within the same cell is very useful for headings. It is not so useful for the rest of the data in your worksheets since it slows down data entry and makes editing difficult.

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