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

Technical requirements

The IF, CHOOSE, and PRODUCT functions, as well as Names, work in any version of Excel. The SWITCH function requires Excel 2019 or later, while the LET function requires Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365. The LAMBDA function works in Microsoft 365 and Excel for the web. There are two example workbooks for this chapter: the Chapter 11 - Names, LET, and LAMBDA.xlsx workbook can be opened in any version of Excel, although SWITCH, LET, and LAMBDA will return #NAME? in unsupported versions of Excel. The Chapter 11 - BOX_VOLUME and XBOX_VOLUME.xlsm workbook contains programming code used to create custom worksheet functions and may be blocked by your network or Microsoft Windows. I’ll show you how to resolve a Windows block when we get to that part of this chapter. Both workbooks can be downloaded from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Exploring-Microsoft-Excels-Hidden-Treasures/tree/main/Chapter11.