Helping you to get the most out of your computer, below are tips which are expanded upon from our newsletter. To be added to our mailing list of handy tips, please send an email to mail@vantageit.co.uk
As with Microsoft Word (featured in Issue 6), Excel too has a number of time-saving features to speed up repetitive tasks and a few of these are shown here.
Copy Field Contents
To copy the contents of the cell immediately above the cell your cursor is in, hold down Ctrl and press D.
Insert Today's Date
To insert today's date, position your cursor in the cell, press Ctrl and ; (semi-colon).
To Sum a Column of Numbers
Position the cursor in the first empty field below a column of numbers and press the AutoSum button and press Enter.
Create Automatic Backups
Open the spreadsheet, click File then Save As.
In the Save As window, click the Tools button at the top right and select General Options.
Click to select Always create backup, click OK then Save to save the file.
Now when you save the file, a backup of the previous version will be created (with a filename of 'Backup of filename.xlk').
Lock Columns or Rows
Often, long or wide spreadsheets contain headings in the top rows or left-hand columns that you would rather stay visible as you scroll around the sheet. This can be accomplished by locking cells:
Position the cursor in the field immediately to the right and/or below the field that is to be the header, click the menu option Window then Freeze Panes. All fields above and to the left of the cursor will be locked and act as headers. This works on the screen only - to print them, see the tip below.
Print the Same Row or Column on Each Page
When printing a spreadsheet, you may want certain rows or columns to appear on each page. To set these:
Click the menu option File then Page Setup and click the Sheet tab.
Click the icon to the right of Rows to repeat at top or Columns to repeat at left and highlight the rows or columns to be used - click the column or row label to select one line, or click and drag the mouse to highlight more than one row/column.
Press the Enter key and the cell range will appear in the box.
Click OK to save the settings.
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