Posts Tagged ‘function’

Add AutoNumbering to your MS Excel Spreadsheet

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Autonumbering will advance your numbered rows and keep them current, even if you should delete or add a row.

Unfortunately, MS Excel does not ship with an autonumbering feature like that found in MS Access, that increments a number each time you add a new row. In Excel 2003 and 2007 however, you can use the Row function to add your own autonumbering to a list.

Say you want to create a list of all of your school’s classes and their corresponding learning materials.

Follow the steps below to add autonumbering to the list:

  • In A1, enter the formula below:

=TEXT(Row(A1),”000-000″)

  • Enter the name of the first class in B1.
  • Enter the learning material of the first class in C1.
  • Copy cell A1 to A2.
  • Enter the name of the second class in B2.
  • Enter the learning material of the second class in C2.
  • Select A1:C2.
  • Go to Data | List and select Create List.

Data List Dialog Box

  • In Excel 2007, press CTRL + T and then click OK.

Notice, that when you type the name of the next class in B3 and press Tab, MS Excel will automatically provide the next number for you.

Autonumbered List

Clean Up Copied Data in MS Excel Easily

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Sometimes when you copy and paste data in MS Excel you copy over non-printing character and other strange looking things that you did not intend to copy.

Well the good news is that there is an easy way to clean up that data with a very easy to use MS Excel function called the Clean Function.

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Select the cells with the data that needs to be cleaned.
  2. Enter the following formula: =CLEAN(A2) or whatever cell you are referencing.
  3. Click CTRL + Enter.
  4. MS Excel will now display the contents of the cells without the non-printable characters.

You can now copy the results to another part of your workbook using the Paste Special option to copy the values without the formulas.

Word 2007 – Disable the Mini Toolbar

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

When text is selected in MS Word 2007, the Mini toolbar will appear. At first you can barely see it because it is so faint, but if you hover your mouse over it, it becomes much more visible.

The function of the Mini toolbar is to make common formatting commands handy for you. It can be very convenient if you want to highlight some text or make some changes to the font.

Alternatively, the Mini toolbar can be cumbersome if you want to rearrange text using the click and drag method. It can also be very distracting at times.

For whatever reason, if you would like to disable the Mini toolbar, follow the steps below:

  1. Click the Office Button.
  2. Select Word Options.
  3. Click Popular on the left-hand side.
  4. Deselect Show Mini Toolbar on selection.

That’s it – you’re finished – no more Mini toolbar!