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

Connecting to databases and installing ODBC drivers

You’ll notice that this book doesn’t have anywhere near 1,000 pages, which means there’s simply not enough space to dive very deep into the topic of connecting to databases and installing ODBC drivers. With that said, the examples in this chapter were chosen to give you exposure to using Power Query with a variety of data sources. As you’ll see, connecting to a database typically only involves a couple of steps, depending on the platform that you’re connecting to.

Establishing an Access database and SQL Server connections

Let’s start by linking to an Access database in Excel for Windows (you cannot connect to Access databases in Excel for macOS):

  1. Press Ctrl + N to create a blank workbook (or choose File | New and choose Blank Workbook).
  2. Choose Data | Get Data | From Database | From Microsoft Access Database, select the Chapter 12 – Fruit Sales.accdb database from...