Converting Formulas to Values in Excel

Ever need to convert cells containing a formula to its value?

Sure, you can select the cell, copy it to the clipboard, paste it back to the same cell, click the Paste Options button, click Paste Special, and then click Values. The cell contains the value instead of the formula.

There is a better way. Simply select the cell to be converted, press F2, and then F9.

IE7 and the Scroll Wheel

I just discovered a neat feature in IE7. Click a link with the scroll wheel instead of the left or right mouse button and the page opens in a new tab. Use with links off a Web page, the Links bar in IE7, and the Favorites links. This saves a number of clicks. To close the tab, click the tab with the scroll mouse.

Remove the Hyperlink

How many times have you copy and pasted from a Web page into a Word document and been frustrated with all the links that carried over? Sure, you can pull down the Paste Option button’s arrow and select Keep Text Only, but this removes all the formatting as well. You may want to keep the fonts and colors, but just not the links.

One at a time, you might right-click each link and select Remove Hyperlink. A longer method is to click Insert > Links > Hyperlink, and then on the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, click Remove Hyperlink.

There is a better way.

Click the hyperlinked word(s) and press Shift+Ctrl+F9. The hyperlink is removed. To do all at once, Ctrl+A to select the entire document, then Shift+Ctrl+F9 and all hyperlinks in the document are removed.

Closing Multiple Excel 2007 Workbooks

I often end up with many open workbooks. To close them one at a time takes a number of clicks by right-clicking and selecting close for each one. If I had made any changes to a workbook, a dialog box opens and I have to decide to save or the workbook, or not. There is a better way.

http://www.ric.edu/faculty/revans/webct_files/Closing%20Multiple%20Workbooks.mht

What Happened to About?

Finding the version of current applications is not as easy as it used to be. Since the early version of Windows, every application has had a menu option for Help. Clicking Help dropped down a list which included at the bottom an About selection. Click it and you were given a window listing the company who wrote the application and its version number.

With Office 2007, this has changed. No longer is there a Help menu option to click or an About selection. But there still is an About screen.

Click the Office Button, then in the lower right of the status bar, click Word Options (or Excel Options, or PowerPoint Options). In the left pane, click Resources. Locate and click the About button.

OR: Office > Word Options > Resources > About

The familiar About window displays with the current version of the application. Notice the System Information button? Clicking it will display details about the hardware you are using.

Excel AutoFormat

Office 2003 had a neat feature allowing you to take a generic worksheet and apply formatting (color and style) by selecting from a list of premade sets. This is not available by default in Office 2007. However, it can be added to the quick access toolbar with a few clicks.

To see how go to:
http://www.ric.edu/faculty/revans/webct_files/excel%20autoformat.mht

AutoFill

Every so often I have a worksheet with many rows and I need to copy a formula from one row all the way down to the last row. Using the Fill Handle I drag the formula down to the last cell in the row. When there are hundreds of rows involved this can take a long time. What I did not know about until recently is the double-click option. Double-click the fill handle and Excel copies the entry all the way down through the last active cell in the row.

Need to create a column with sequence numbers from 1 to the whatever? Enter a 1 in the first cell and a 2 in the second cell, select both cells, and then double-click the fill handle. Excel completes the sequence all the way down through the last cell in the series.

Excel 2007 Tip

One of the features of Word I have liked is having each Word document open in a new application window. Then when closing one document, they do not all attempt to close. This was a problem in prior versions and I was guilty more than once of closing a file I had not yet saved by accident. With Office 2003 the problem was solved by opening new application windows for each document.

Excel did not make that change until the 2007 version. It even added another feature when closing that works better than Word 2007. Press Alt+F4 at any open workbook and all open workbooks attempt to close—you get the do you want to save window for each file. If you just close a single workbook, non of the other workbooks are affected. Word does not have the Alt+F4 feature and pressing that combination just closes the active document.

IE7 Shortcut Tips

It is nice to discover that some of the old shortcuts still work with the new browser. Alt-D move you to the address bar with the current address selected. Just type the new address and hit Enter to change it—or type the domain name, then Ctrl+Enter to have IE7 add the prefix of "http://www." and the suffix of ".com" automatically.

If you are editing the existing URL in the address bar, Alt+D to select it and switch to it, then Ctrl+arrow (left or right) to move to the beginning of a section. To move to and select a section, use Shift+Ctrl+arrow.

Ctrl+N still opens a new incident of the same page in a new browser window. It does not open it in another tab. When you are through with the page, simply close the browser and the original browser with all your tabs is still available.

An Excel Range Tip

This formula does not look correct =COUNTA(A:A), but it is. By entering a range with column letters without row numbers, Excel assumes you are referring to all the active cells in the column listed. And it works the same for rows. =SUM(15:15) will add up all cells in row 15.

=SUM(A:B) would add up all the cells in both column A and B.

Cute, but is it useful? Yes, in a worksheet of email addresses I use for one of my emailings, I need to know how many are on the list. At the top of the worksheet I created a formula containing =COUNTA(A:A)-1 to count the number of emails in the list. I subtracted 1 to exclude counting the row containing the column heading.

Internet Explorer 7 Tips

By now you have probably installed Internet Explorer 7 and experienced the Microsoft version of Tabbed Browsing. To be honest, I was not unhappy with IE6. It did what I needed and I frequently used Ctrl+N to open a new instance of the current window so I would not loose my place when browsing. The taskbar would fill up pretty quickly, but I was used to it. (This still works with IE7)

 

Enter IE7 with tabs--very nice. The taskbar is now clean with only one IE task open. Quick tabs (Ctrl+Q) lets me see miniature windows of the contents of each tab. And there is plenty of help on the Microsoft site. Of course most of us will just figure out how to use it on our own—perhaps this is a geek thing.

 

I have done some exploring and here are some shortcuts I have found useful to me:

 

Ctrl+Click will open a favorite item or an item on your link bar in a new tab and gives it focus.

 

When clicking a link on an open Web page, there are three options:

• Click opens the link on top of the existing page (unless the link is set by the Webmaster to open on a new page)
• Shift+Click opens the link in a new instance of the browser
• Ctrl+Click opens the link in a new tab but the current window keeps focus
• Shift+Ctrl+Click opens the link in a new tab and gives it focus

 

When typing an address into the address bar, there are some additional options:

• Type and hit Enter, the new site opens in the tab currently having focus
• Type and then Alt+Enter, the new sites opens in a new tab with focus
• Type the domain name without the .com, then Ctrl+Alt+Enter and IE7 adds the http://www to the left and .com to the right, then opens the site in a new tab with focus
• Ctrl+Enter adds the rest of the .com, but opens in the tab currently having focus (just like it did in IE6)

 

To close a tab:

• Click the X on the tab (visible if the tab has focus)
• Right-click the tab and select Close
• Middle_click the tab (the middle button is the scroll wheel)

 

For a lot more information on tabbed browsing, see the FAQ page at Microsoft at http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/b37c030b-bdc5-488e-aeca-3e64b739736e1033.mspx

 

Speeding up Windows
The search tool in Windows XP is a great way to look for a file when you forgot where you put it, or what you called it. To make those searches move at the fastest pace possible, Windows XP defaults the "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching" option on the General tab of the Disk Properties dialog box.

My hard disk seemed to always run and run, even when I was not actively doing anything. I would check the Task Manager and find the CPU usage at 100% and then just wait or restart the system. I opened the Disk Properties dialog box (Start > My Computer, right-click Drive C:, and then choose Properties). On the General tab, I unchecked the Allow Indexing… option, and clicked OK. The process took a few minutes to complete—it had to update all files on the drive.

What a difference this little change made. No more was the CPU usage at 100%. The search stills works great, even though it might be a little slower.

Smaller Word Files
Ever wonder why Word files are so large? And why they grow at an unusual rate as you make changes to the document? It has to do with the Fast Save feature--on by default.

In Word, choose Tools > Options > Save and uncheck Allow fast saves.

You probably will not notice the difference in time it takes to save the document, and the size of the document will be smaller. Fast save stores information about the last fifteen modifications you have made to the document resulting in larger file sizes. Turn it off and this old information is not recorded.

Speak to Me
When writing a document, paper, or a novel, the next step is to proof read it. I find errors in things I proofread and then published. Heck, when I read published novels I even find errors. No matter how many times I read something over, I seem to always miss something. I wrote it and my brain knows what I meant to say, so as I read it over, I miss some of the mistakes. A method that has been working for me is to read it out loud to my wife. As I do, mistakes I missed the first time pop out at me and I fix them as I read.

There is another way. Let the computer do the reading and you listen. A feature in Microsoft Word 2003 allows the computer to read any text selected in the document out loud. The voice is a little robotic, but very understandable. Simply select the text (Ctrl+A to select all) and then press Win+S (Win is the Windows key on the keyboard--usually a flag to the left of the spacebar).

Smart Quotes
I use Word as my word processor even when creating articles for email publication. Sure, I could just type in the compose window of my email program, but it does not have the same level authoring tools as Word. I use the spelling checker, the grammar checker, and the Alt+click access to the research task pane frequently. I am actually typing this blog entry in Word right now! One thing Word does to make the document professional looking causes an issue in my email program—the way it automatically converts a double-quote to left and right quotes. Each copy and paste would require manually fixing the odd character caused by the left and right quote. With one checkbox entry in Word, the problem is solved.

Tools > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat As You Type, then uncheck "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes"

Quick Dates in Word
Typing a date is not difficult to do, and Word makes it easy by auto completing it. Type Feb and a screen tip pops up asking if you are typing February. Just hit the Enter key and you are done. If you know the current date, you can just type it. If you do not, Insert > Date and Time… opens the Date and Time dialog box where you select from various date formats.

However, there is an even easier way—use the shortcut Alt+Shft+D. Today’s date will be placed at the insertion point in the default date format (mm/dd/yyyy unless you have changed it). To change the default format, Insert > Date and Time…, select the desired format, and then in the lower left corner click Default.

Office on the Web

I use Office 2003 and am experimenting with the beta of Office 2007. I was really turned off at the thought of not having the familiar drop down menus and toolbars. I have to admit I am adjusting very quickly to the new look and feel of the ribbons.

But, what if I purchase a new notebook for the road and really do not want to spend as much on another copy of Office 2003--heck, Office Professional costs almost as much as the discounted low end notebooks today. Sure, I can install a 2007 beta copy and get by over the few months of the beta trial. There is another way.

I have been working online with two different sites offering word processing and spreadsheet capability over the Internet. Nothing needs to be installed on your end and you can save the work in Word, Excel, and even PowerPoint format on your own machine. Other formats are also available. The documents can even remain online for you to access or share with others.

Check out www.thinkfree.com for word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software. Yes, it is free to use and quick to execute. I am using broadband, so I do not have experience using it over a landline. Another couple of alternatives are from Google and include a word processor at www.writely.com and a spreadsheet at www.spreadsheet.google.com.

As with many new, free applications today, these are beta versions so try them at your own risk. I have and think they are great!

Another Useful Excel Function

Excel has hundreds of built in function, but the most used ones seem to be sum(),min(), max(), average(), count(), if(), and perhaps pmt() and even vlookup(). When presented with a problem requiring the creation of a complex formula, check the functions first. There just might be one to solve the problem instead of you having to use various Excel features to solve it mannualy.

For instance, finding the largest value in a range such as A5:D50 is easly solved using max(A5:D50). What if you needed the two largest values or even the second largest? Without a function, you would probably sort the data and manually find the next to largest.

Yes there is a function to do it! The large() function will pull out the nth largest value in any range of data. In our example above, you would enter large(A5:D50,2) to locate the next to the largest value. Yes, the small() function will do the reverse and find the next (or nth) to smallest value.

Graphing in Excel
One of the last pieces of Excel I taught this semester was graphing. This is the ability to take ranges of cells and turn them into graphical representations using a variety of chart types. The two most used seem to be the column chart and the pie chart. The line graph might be third, especially when graphing progress over time.

The Chart Wizard is what the textbook uses, and what I concentrate on as well. However, for a quick chart there is even an easier way. Select the items to be charted, then press F11. It could not be simpler. A new worksheet named Chart1 is created containing a column chart of the selected data.

Want to alter the automatic results? Click the chart and you will notice a menu bar entry named Chart where you have options to change any of the defaulted items including the chart type.

Cleaning up Email
I really dislike getting emails forwarded to me with all the >>> next to each line. There is so much junk, it makes reading the message like decoding a secret document. You can copy the offending text into Word and then use find/replace to clean it up; even make use of the Alt key to left drag vertically to select columns of the annoying characters and delete them.

A little program called emailStripper make it an easy task. Simply copy/paste the email text into this programs window, click Strip It, and the original message appears. Copy/paste it back to the message you are forwarding and your readers will never cuss at your emails again.

Find it at http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm