Topics: Microsoft Excel

This is a no-brainer, but so easily overlooked. You start typing a series of repetitive things like dates (1/1/20, 1/2/20, 1/3/20, etc.) and you know you're in for a long day. Instead, begin the series and move the cursor on the screen to the lower-right part of the last cell—the fill handle. When i...

There are much faster ways to select a dataset than using the mouse and dragging the cursor, especially in a spreadsheet that could contain hundreds of thousands of rows or columns. Click in the first cell you want to select and hold down Ctrl+Shift, then hit either the down arrow to get all the dat...

Flash Fill will smartly fill a column based on the pattern of data it sees in the first column (it helps if the top row is a unique header row). For example, if the first column is all phone numbers that are formatted like "2125034111" and you want them to all look like "(212)-503-4111," start typin...

Typing into spreadsheet cells can be frustrating, as the default for text you type is to continue on forever, without wrapping back down to a new line. You can change that. Create a new line by typing Alt+Enter (hitting Enter alone takes you out of the cell). Or, click the Wrap Text option under the...

Let's say you change not only the wrapping in a cell, but also the entire look—the font, the color, whatever. And you want to apply it to many, many other cells. The trick is the Format Painter tool, the one that is on the Home tab that looks like a paint brush. Select the sell you like, click th...