Introduction

Excel is a very popular program. Millions of people throughout the world use it on a regular basis. But it’s a safe bet that the vast majority of users have yet to discover some of the amazing things this product can do. If I’ve done my job, you’ll find enough useful information in this book to help you use Excel on a new level.

What You Should Know

This book isn’t a beginner’s guide to Excel. Rather, it’s a book for those who already use Excel but realize that they have a lot more to learn. This book contains 101 tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years, and I’m certain that about 99 percent of all Excel users will find something new and useful in these pages.

If you have absolutely no experience with Excel, this book might not be the best choice for you. To get the most out of this book, you should have some background in using Excel. Specifically, I assume that you know how to accomplish the following tasks with Excel:

→ Create workbooks, insert worksheets, save files, and perform other basic tasks.

→ Navigate through a workbook.

→ Use the Excel Ribbon and dialog boxes.

→ Use basic Windows features, such as file management and copy-and-paste techniques.

What You Should Have

To use this book, you need a copy of Microsoft Excel 2013 for Windows. If you use an older version of Excel, some of the tips won’t apply.

As far as hardware goes for the computer you use to run Excel, the faster, the better. And, of course, the more memory in your system, the happier you’ll be.

Conventions in This Book

Take a minute to skim this section and become familiar with some of the typographic conventions used throughout this book.

Formula listings

Formulas usually appear on a separate line in monospace font. For example, I might list the following formula:

=VLOOKUP(StockNumber,PriceList,2,False)

Excel supports a special type of formula known as an array formula. When you enter an array formula, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (not just Enter). Excel encloses an array formula in curly braces to remind you that it’s an array formula.

Don’t type the curly braces for an array formula. Excel puts them in automatically.

Key names

Names of keys on the keyboard appear in normal type: for example, Alt, Home, PgDn, and Ctrl. When you need to press two or more keys simultaneously, the keys are connected with a plus sign: Press Ctrl+G to display the Go To dialog box.

The Ribbon

Excel 2013 features the Ribbon user interface, which was introduced in Excel 2007.

When you need to select a command by using the Ribbon, I describe the command by using the tab name, the group name, and the command name: for example, Choose Home⇒Alignment⇒Wrap Text. This command translates to “Click the Home tab, locate the Alignment group, and then click the Wrap Text button.”

Some commands use a drop-down Ribbon control. For example: Home⇒Styles⇒Conditional Formatting⇒New Rule. In this case, you need to click the down-pointing arrow on the Conditional Formatting control in order to access the New Rule command.

Many commands begin with the word File. Clicking the File tab takes you to the Backstage View.

Functions, procedures, and named ranges

The names of the Excel worksheet functions appear in all uppercase letters: for example, “Use the SUM function to add the values in column A.”

Unless you’re dealing with text inside quotation marks, Excel isn’t sensitive to case. In other words, both the following formulas produce the same result:

=SUM(A1:A50)

=sum(a1:a50)

Excel, however, converts the characters in the second formula to uppercase.

Mouse conventions

The mouse terminology in this book is all standard fare: pointing, clicking, right-clicking, dragging, and so on. You know the drill.

What the icons mean

Throughout this book, icons appear in the left margin to call your attention to points that are particularly important.

I use Note icons to tell you that something is important — perhaps a concept that can help you master the task at hand or something fundamental for understanding subsequent material.

  I use Caution icons when the operation I’m describing can cause problems if you’re not careful.

  I use the Cross-Reference icon to refer you to other tips that have more to say on a particular topic.

How This Book Is Organized

To provide some semblance of order, I grouped these tips and tricks into six parts:

→ Part I: Workbooks and Files

→ Part II: Formatting

→ Part III: Formulas

→ Part IV: Working with Data

→ Part V: Tables and Pivot Tables

→ Part VI: Charts and Graphics

How to Use This Book

This book really isn’t intended to be read from cover to cover, as you would read a novel — but I’m sure that some people will do so. More likely, you’ll want to use it as a reference book and consult it when necessary. If you’re faced with a challenging task, you may want to check the index first to see whether the book specifically addresses your problem. The order of the parts and tips is arbitrary. Most readers will probably skip around and pick up useful tidbits here and there.

There are also an additional 30 bonus tips that you’ll find at www.dummies.com/go/101excel2013tips.

About the Power Utility Pak Offer

Toward the back of this book is a coupon that you can redeem for a discounted copy of my award-winning Power Utility Pak — a collection of useful Excel utilities, plus many new worksheet functions.

You can also use this coupon to purchase the complete VBA source code for a nominal fee. Study-ing the code is an excellent way to pick up some useful programming techniques. You can take the product for a test drive by downloading the trial version from my website at http://spreadsheetpage.com.

Power Utility Pak version 7 requires the Windows version of Excel 2007 or later.