Key time savers in Excel – helping in your day to day work

Do you know any of these key time savers in Excel?

key time savers Excel: Excel iconThis week, we are bringing you another hint and tip on Excel! We have been running a lot of Excel courses recently and a reoccurring comment that we get from attendees is about how useful the shortcuts are! So, we thought it would be helpful to give you a reminder of some of the key time savers you can use in Excel. Most of these are applicable to all versions but some which are pertinent to a particular version are mentioned.

They range from the obvious to more obscure!

 

Time Savers

  1. Holding the Control key and then pressing the ‘strange button’ (the button with 3 strange characters under Esc key) will show all your formulas
  2. Fill Copy Button (little black square in bottom right of a cell) has three uses:
    • Create a data series or 1,2,3,4 or a custom list series Jan, Feb, Mar
    • Copy a formula relative to the place you are copying it into
    • You can also double click on to square to fill down automatically
  3. Evaluate Formula in Formulas Tab allows for tracing through a complex set of arithmetic operations in Excel orders of precedence
  4. New Quick Analysis button (Excel 2013) allows you to chart, conditionally format and total close to the action
  5. Charts – select Data then F11 (Creates a chart Sheet) – everyone’s all-time favourite
  6. Using Slicers to filter in Pivot Tables (Excel 2010 onwards only)
  7. Freeze panes – will hold rows and columns in place whilst scrolling
  8. Group Sheet Selection (using shift key) selects all sheets to negate the need for multiple copy paste
  9. Whenever sorting, sub totalling or filtering always have row 1 as your headers (fields) and rows 2 onwards for detail data with no blank rows or columns. Before activating the command choose an active cell in your list
  10. Accounting number button in middle of the Home ribbon (quicker than right click Format Cells)

We cover all these features and many more in our Excel courses which range from Basic Excel to Master Class Excel.

For more details see here.

We wish you many time saving moments in Excel!

If you liked this hint and tip, why not take a look at our previous one on checking worksheets in Excel?