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

Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to use Data Validation to limit users’ responses within specific worksheet cells. The default rules you can establish include Whole Number, Decimal, List, Date, Time, and Text length. As you saw, you can also create custom rules to establish any sort of limit that you may need.

Data Validation is an imperfect feature that users can bypass by pasting data into cells that contain validation rules. Furthermore, any data that is already in cells that you apply Data Validation to is exempted from the rules. Fortunately, you can audit Data Validation entries by having Excel draw red circles around the invalid inputs.

Finally, you saw that Form Controls offer an alternative to Data Validation that creates restrictions that users cannot bypass by pasting data. In short, Data Validation and Form Controls are all about adding interactivity to spreadsheets.

In the following chapter, you’ll see how you can use What-If Analysis tools...