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

Excluding weekend dates from charts

Sometimes, Excel becomes overly helpful, leaving us having to figure out how to undo the unwanted help. For instance, as shown in Figure 9.11, the Excluding Chart Weekend Dates worksheet in the example workbook includes data for two Monday to Friday periods, and yet Excel insists on creating a gap for the weekend:

Figure 9.11 – Phantom dates inserted into a chart

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix, although many of us would be hard-pressed to figure it out on our own. Check this out:

  1. Right-click on the Horizontal (Category) axis and then choose Format Axis.
  2. Choose Axis Options | Axis Type | Text axis to close the gap. The settings are illustrated in Figure 9.12:

Figure 9.12 – Choosing Text axis to remove phantom dates from charts

As you can see, when the Chart Axis options are set to Automatically select based on data or Date axis, Excel interpolates any missing...