Using keyboard shortcuts is a much more efficient way of working than choosing options through the menu. Here are a few killer keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Excel that can save you time.

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Never leave the key board

Using keyboard shortcuts to choose options is definitely faster than reaching out for the mouse everytime. Office 2007 makes it easy. Tap the Alt key while in any Office 2007 application and the ribbon is instantly covered in small letters indicating the keystrokes. Type the for the different ribbon tabs (H for Home, N for Insert etc) to access individual ribbon controls and more key shortcuts. Read the full story

Recently my friend and I launched a website called Gconnect.in. It is basically meant to be a community website for the officers of Government of India.

Incidentally, the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations were announced within a day or two of the launch of GConnect. As soon as it was announced, another friend of ours had prepared a worksheet in Excel which would help the officers determine their new pay and the arrears, based on the recommendations. We thought it would be a useful tool to put up on our site.

Initially, we thought of just putting up the Excel file for download. But, suddenly, we remembered Zoho Sheet, an online spreadsheet, and the fact that one could make a spreadsheet shareable in public. So, we imported the Excel file into Zoho Sheet. Initially, we weren’t quite sure if it would work well. Read the full story

Ever come across an Excel file that you can open and view but if you wanted to edit it, you can’t, since it is has been protected? And when you try to unprotect, it asks for a password.

Here are a couple of ways to overcome the situation. While, you may not be able to make the original document editable without the password, you can create editable copies. Read the full story

Keyboard shortcuts are definitely great time savers. Here is a list of shortcuts for Windows, Word, Excel and Outlook for you to use. Of course, it wouldn’t be possible for an average person to remember all the shortcuts but then you wouldn’t need to. It would be enough if you remember the ones that you would use most frequently. I would suggest that you take a print out of these shortcuts and keep them handy.
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Here are some Excel Tips you might find useful.

Sort by more than three columns
Excel’s sort feature only allows you to sort by upto 3 columns only.

Suppose, you have more than 3 columns, say five columns of data that you want to sort, how would you do that? Well, the key to this is sorting by the last key first and working back to the first key. Assume that your data is in the columns A:E and you want to sort by A,B,C,D and finally E.

• Select all the columns A:E.
• Go to Data>Sort. Sort by C then by D then by E. Click ‘Sort‘.
• Now, again with the columns A:E selected, go to Data>Sort. Sort by A then by B. Click ‘Sort‘.

Entering Named Ranges Into Formulas
When you write a formula, sometimes you would want to use a Named Range as one of the arguments for the formula, but you cannot remember the name. Nothing to worry. Simple press [F3] when you reach the argument that you want the Named Range in, and Excel will display the ‘Paste Name‘ dialog. Click the name you want, and click ‘OK‘.

Transpose Formulas without changing the reference
Using transpose you can change the change the data in columns into rows and viceversa. But if you try to do the same with formulas, you will find that the reference has changed in the newly created column or row. Here is how you can overcome the problem.

• First, select the cells in the column that you want to transpose.
• Then go to Edit>Replace and replace “=” with “#”.
• Now, copy the cells and transpose the data using Edit>Paste special and choosing ‘Transpose‘.
• Now, select the cells in the transposed row or column and again replace all the “#”s with “=”.

View multiple sheets or workbooks
To view multiple sheets or workbooks at the same time, open the workbooks you want to view. To view multiple sheets in the active workbook, click ‘New Window’ on the ‘Window’ menu. Switch to the new window, and then click a sheet you want to view. Repeat for each sheet you want to view. On the ‘Window’ menu click ‘Arrange’. Under ‘Arrange’, click the option you want.
In order to view sheets in only the active workbook, select the ‘Windows of active workbook’ checkbox.

Catching Formula Errors
Whenever typing one of Excel’s functions, especially nested ones, into a cell, use lowercase. This way when you press [Enter], Excel will capitalise only the names of the functions you have entered correctly.

Watch out for more Excel Tips in future.