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

Implementing Data Validation rules

As you can see, Data Validation rules limit the types of entries that users can make within worksheet cells. This section will discuss each of the Data Validation rules that you can assign to worksheet cells.

Any value

As I discussed earlier in the chapter, Any value means that the user can type any value that they wish. Clearing Data Validation rules as we did in the preceding section resets the cell(s) to allow any value. Every cell in a worksheet defaults to Any value.

Tip

You can choose to fill in the Input Message tab for any cell while leaving the validation rule set to Any value. This allows you to create documentation that appears on demand when a user clicks on a worksheet cell, and it is an alternative to adding a note or comment to a cell. In this context, you would leave the Error Alert tab blank since there’s no rule in place that would trigger an error prompt.

The next rule on the Allow list is Whole Number.

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