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

Color Scales

Color Scales are an easy way to create a heat map within your data, and assign colors based on a number’s proportionate scale within a list. Here are the steps:

  1. Optional: Sort the amounts in ascending or descending order.
  2. Select a range of cells that contain numbers, such as cells I3:I22 in the Color Scales worksheet of this chapter’s example workbook.
  3. Choose Home | Conditional Formatting | Color Scales, and then choose a Color Scale grouping to create a heat map, such as cells D3:D22 in Figure 4.12.

Figure 4.12 – Color scales Conditional Formatting

Nuance

As with data bars, you can choose More Rules to fine-tune the presentation of the formatting.

Now, let’s look at the Icon Sets rule, which offers yet another way to graphically present your data.