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

Creating a list of worksheets

I can visualize situations where an auto-generated list of worksheets would be a helpful addition to many workbooks. A couple of ideas include tracking the progress of a workbook audit, eyeballing a simple list of all worksheets in a workbook, or maybe taking things up a level by building a clickable worksheet index. Such an index may feel redundant. After all, when right-click on the navigation arrows in the bottom left-hand corner of Excel you can navigate by double-clicking on any worksheet Name the Activate dialog box. On the other hand, this index will be a self-updating listing that includes the Names of hidden worksheets and can be sorted alphabetically if desired. Let’s jump in::

  1. Open the Chapter 12 – Workbook Index.xlsx example workbook for this chapter, which contains 17 worksheets.
  2. Activate the Summary tab so that your index will appear as the first sheet in the workbook.

Tip

When you load data from Power...