Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By : David Ringstrom
Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By: David Ringstrom

Overview of this book

David Ringstrom coined the phrase “Either you work Excel, or it works you!” after observing how many users carry out tasks inefficiently. In this book, you’ll learn how to get more done with less effort. This book will enable you to create resilient spreadsheets that are easy for others to use as well, while incorporating spreadsheet disaster preparedness techniques. The time-saving techniques covered in the book include creating custom shortcuts and icons to streamline repetitive tasks, as well as automating them with features such as Tables and Custom Views. You’ll see how Conditional Formatting enables you to apply colors, Cell icons, and other formatting on-demand as your data changes. You’ll be empowered to protect the integrity of spreadsheets and increase usability by implementing internal controls, and understand how to solve problems with What-If Analysis features. In addition, you’ll master new features and functions such as XLOOKUP, Dynamic Array functions, LET and LAMBDA, and Power Query, while learning how to leverage shortcuts and nuances in Excel. By the end of this book, you’ll have a broader awareness of how to avoid pitfalls in Excel. You’ll be empowered to work more effectively in Excel, having gained a deeper understanding of the frustrating oddities that can arise daily in Excel.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Improving Accessibility
6
Part 2:Spreadsheet Interactivity and Automation
12
Part 3: Data Analysis

Custom Views conflicts

After singing the praises of Custom Views all through this chapter, I now have some sad news to deliver. The Custom Views feature is unavailable any time that you use the Table feature, which I sang the praises of in Chapter 7, Automating Tasks with the Table Feature. A conflict can sometimes arise with the Power Query feature, which I will discuss in Chapter 12, Power Query. Older versions of Excel for macOS permitted users to use Custom Views and the Table feature together in the same workbook, but the Windows version never has. This means you will sometimes have to choose between which feature (Custom Views, Table, or Power Query) will offer the biggest most effective automation and data integrity in each a given workbook. In addition, the Review | Protect Sheet and Review | Protect Workbook commands can also sometimes pose conflicts with Custom Views.

Nuance

Power Query only disables Custom Views when results are returned to a Table. This means that...