Posts Tagged ‘MS Excel’

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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.

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Posted in Excel 2003, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Excel, Office Productivity | No Comments »

Create a Drop-Down List From a Range of Cells in MS Excel

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

There are many reasons why one would want to create a drop-down list in MS Excel, but mostly I think, because it makes your data entry much easier and you can limit the entries to certain items that you can determine.

You can create a drop-down list of entries that is compiled from cells elsewhere on your worksheet and when you create the drop-down list, it will display a drop-down arrow next to that cell. When you want to select an item from that list, you can simply use the drop-down arrow and click the item that you want.

To create a drop-down list in MS Excel 2003, follow the steps below:

  • Use a single column or row without blank cells to create your valid entries for your drop-down list.

 

  • Make sure that you have sorted the list in the order in which you would like it to appear in your list.

You can use another worksheet or workbook if you like. To use a different worksheet in the same workbook:

  • Type the list on that worksheet.
  • Define a name, such as classes.
  • Select the range of cells.
  • Click the Name box at the left end of the Formula Bar.

  • Type the name for the cells.
  • Click Enter.

Pretty simple to do and it looks so very professional and is very helpful to boot!

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Posted in Excel 2003, Microsoft Office, Office Productivity | No Comments »

Put Checkmarks in your Cells in MS Excel

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

I receive lots of e-mail from subscribers asking me if they can put checkmarks into the cells in their MS Excel spreadsheets. The short answer is yes!

There are several ways to place checkmarks in the cells of your MS Excel spreadsheets. Follow the steps below to learn how:

Note – Depending upon your version of MS Excel and Windows, you may not have some of the fonts below.

  1. Type a lower case a and change the font to Marlette or Webdings.
  2. Type an upper case P and change the font to Wingdings2.
  3. Hold down the ALT key and type 251.
  4. Click on Insert | Insert Symbol and scroll down and click on the checkmark. Click on Insert | Close | Enter.
  5. Hold down the ALT key and type 0252 and change the font to Wingdings.

You may also insert a CheckBox in your worksheet by following these steps: 

  • Click on View | Toolbars | Forms.
  • Select the CheckBox icon and click where you would like to place the CheckBox in your spreadsheet.

You can also change or delete the CheckBox label or resize or move it.

To make a copy of the CheckBox, hold down your CTRL key while dragging the border of the CheckBox.

Now you have lots and lots of choices to place checkmarks into your spreadsheets!

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Posted in Excel 2003, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Excel, Office Productivity | 4 Comments »

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