If you have Microsoft Office installed on your home computer, this means you have a copy of Microsoft Excel. This is a highly versatile program offering more than for its user than simply being a program for data entry. It is an excellent accounting tool; you can use it to create budgets and calendars, as well as for planning and many other tasks. While you might not be aware of some of the basic features, read on to discover a few helpful tricks and shortcuts.
Sometimes when you have a spreadsheet filled with data, you need to move an entire row into another space. To select the entire row quickly, simply click in the row and then hit shift and the spacebar. This will highlight the row, and then you can cut the row entirely or paste it elsewhere on that spreadsheet or another spreadsheet.
For those times when you need to highlight a whole column, just click in the first cell and then find the F8 key at the top of your keyboard. Then click that F8 and then click last cell in your column. You also can use this process to highlight every cell in a spreadsheet. Just click in that very first cell and then in the very last cell and everything will highlight. To end this function, just tap on that F8 again and the function will stop. You also can use this to just highlight a chunk of data within your spreadsheet.
Often when you are working on a spreadsheet and you start entering data farther down the sheet, you miss having the header visible. If you have many columns of data, it's difficult to remember what data goes into what cell, so having the header constantly visible would be helpful.
You can create a second header that will appear all of the time. Go over to the right edge and find the scroll bar for the spreadsheet. Above that is an up arrow or triangle that is filled in, and above that is a box with a line in it. Place your cursor over this box and wait until the cursor looks like two up and down arrows with two lines in between arrows. Click and hold and a dark line will appear. Move this arrow down slightly and slowly and you will see a second header appear. Release the mouse and this header will stay in place and you will be able to see it the whole time you enter data, even after row 38.
If you need to organize data a certain way, you can use the handy sort function. At the top of the page, you will notice a variety of tabs - Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc. Under Home, you will find Sort & Filter. You can create your own custom sorts or just go with alphabetical sorts. You can also filter columns to show just certain data which can be very helpful. This is just the tip of the iceberg as there are literally hundreds of shortcuts and functions available in Excel. For more help and hints, click on the question mark at the top of the Excel page. It is surrounded by a blue arrow and links to the Microsoft Excel help system.
Sometimes when you have a spreadsheet filled with data, you need to move an entire row into another space. To select the entire row quickly, simply click in the row and then hit shift and the spacebar. This will highlight the row, and then you can cut the row entirely or paste it elsewhere on that spreadsheet or another spreadsheet.
For those times when you need to highlight a whole column, just click in the first cell and then find the F8 key at the top of your keyboard. Then click that F8 and then click last cell in your column. You also can use this process to highlight every cell in a spreadsheet. Just click in that very first cell and then in the very last cell and everything will highlight. To end this function, just tap on that F8 again and the function will stop. You also can use this to just highlight a chunk of data within your spreadsheet.
Often when you are working on a spreadsheet and you start entering data farther down the sheet, you miss having the header visible. If you have many columns of data, it's difficult to remember what data goes into what cell, so having the header constantly visible would be helpful.
You can create a second header that will appear all of the time. Go over to the right edge and find the scroll bar for the spreadsheet. Above that is an up arrow or triangle that is filled in, and above that is a box with a line in it. Place your cursor over this box and wait until the cursor looks like two up and down arrows with two lines in between arrows. Click and hold and a dark line will appear. Move this arrow down slightly and slowly and you will see a second header appear. Release the mouse and this header will stay in place and you will be able to see it the whole time you enter data, even after row 38.
If you need to organize data a certain way, you can use the handy sort function. At the top of the page, you will notice a variety of tabs - Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc. Under Home, you will find Sort & Filter. You can create your own custom sorts or just go with alphabetical sorts. You can also filter columns to show just certain data which can be very helpful. This is just the tip of the iceberg as there are literally hundreds of shortcuts and functions available in Excel. For more help and hints, click on the question mark at the top of the Excel page. It is surrounded by a blue arrow and links to the Microsoft Excel help system.
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