MORE EXCEL
TREASURES
5
A useful shortcut is to be able to
have a quick look at Print
Preview without having to go through
several tabs and menu selections. Try
CTRL and F2 pressed at the same
time. After reviewing the Print
Preview use the return arrow on the
top left of the screen that jumps you
back to Excel.
John Tennent offers 10 tips to help
you get accustomed to some of the
less well known Excel features
fter the popularity of the first
list of 10 Excel Treasures
published in Finance &
Management in May 2015, here is a
further list of Shortcuts, Functions
and Features. These may not all be
items that you use every day, but they
will be invaluable on the occasions
that you do use them.
A
1
A topical political subject is to start
with Borders. You may well use
many of the standard options: top,
bottom, left and right, but if you click
on the drop down box to the right of
the icon in the Font section of the
Home Ribbon you get a list of other
options (see Figure 1).
6
When producing management
accounts there is often a need to
stretch a heading over several
columns, such as in Figure 2 (below)
where Year to Date straddles columns
B to F. The usual method of achieving
this is to use the Merge & Center
button in the Alignment section of the
Home Ribbon. However, using this
feature causes some range selection
problems. If you want to select a range
that includes any portion of the
merged cells it will automatically
select them all. A better solution is the
‘Center Across Selection’ feature,
which is found by clicking on the
arrow in the bottom right corner of
the Alignment section of the Home
Ribbon (as circled in Figure 3). A
Format Cells dialogue box appears
and on the Alignment Tab click on the
drop down list for Horizontal and the
seventh item is Center Across
Selection. This will achieve the same
visual appearance, but without the
range selection problems.
Towards the bottom of the list is the
Draw Border option. Click on this and
the cursor turns into a pencil enabling
you to click on the gridline on any side
of a cell and apply a border. Just press
the ESC key to deactivate the pencil.
2
At the bottom of the Border list is
the option More Borders. Click
on this and the Format Cells dialogue
box opens at the Border tab. Here you
can select a variety of line types as
well as diagonal lines. These can be
helpful if you want to use Excel to
show flow lines without inserting
shapes (which can be difficult to
control when rows or columns are
inserted or resized).
7
Where there is a piece of text that
is repeatedly typed in Excel such
as the word Total, your own name or
perhaps the name of the business, it
can be efficient to set them up as
AutoCorrect codes – so for example
typing T1 becomes Total and N1
becomes the business name. For this
function to be worthwhile the words
need to be regularly used and be only
a few in number. The benefit is that
you know them rather than having to
pause to look them up.
To set up AutoCorrect codes select
the File Ribbon and then Options at
which point the Excel Options
dialogue box appears. Select Proofing
3
FIGURE 1
I wonder how many times we
carefully select a range for
formatting, printing or within a
formulae, only to realise that we are
one row or column short of what we
actually wanted. Well if that is the
case, use the Shift key with the arrow
keys to change the range by one cell in
any direction. A great way to avoid
having to re-select the range again.
4
To find the largest and smallest
numbers in a range (such as the
variances in a budget report) a
common approach is to use
=MAX(Range) and =MIN(Range). A
useful extension to these are
=LARGE(Range, Position) and
=SMALL(Range, Position) that can be
used to find the second largest, third
largest and so on. These functions
are very helpful to automatically
pull out the top five variances in
management reports.
24
FIGURE 2
MAY 2016 FINANCE & MANAGEMENT
Excel John Tenn ; May 2016 ; Finance and Management 24
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EXCEL FEATURES
FIGURE 3
and a set of options appears. Click on
the AutoCorrect Options… button and
an AutoCorrect dialogue box will
appear. On this there is a section to
enter Replace: and With: (as shown in
Figure 4, T1 is replaced with Total and
once the Add button is pressed it will
be active). In any cell type T1 and a
space and the word Total will appear.
The list of AutoCorrect items can be
scrolled through and any unwanted
items can be deleted. This function is
the same in Word and PowerPoint
where efficiencies can also be made.
8
Many people will be familiar
with the feature whereby if you
highlight a range of numbers, the
SUM of those numbers is displayed in
the Status Bar at the bottom of the
screen (the Status Bar is the green
row that has the Zoom feature on its
right). If you right click the Status Bar
a Customize Status Bar menu
appears that lists a range of other
options that can be displayed too –
the Average, Count (number of
non-blank cells), Numerical Count
(number of numerical values), Max
and Min values.
Comment and will appear beside the
cell when the user goes to input. On
the third Tab you can also define the
error message to be shown, should
invalid data be entered.
Also on Data Validation you can
define a list of words to select from
rather than have a user type in text.
In an area of the Workbook list all the
possible entries, and then on the List
option (fourth item down in the
dialogue box in figure 5) define the
source of the list as the Range of
values already defined. When the
input cell is selected the user will
be presented with a drop down list
only containing the valid items.
If you need to identify which item
number the user has selected use
=MATCH(Selection, Range of options,
0) to identify the item number down
the original list.
FIGURE 5
9
When building Workbooks for
other people to use, one of the
main concerns is making sure that
they enter valid data. What may seem
obvious to a developer is not always
obvious to a user. There is a great
function to help with this. On the Data
Ribbon, select Data Validation and
then from the drop down list of
options select Data Validation again.
A dialogue box will appear. For
example with Whole Numbers you
can define the valid range. On the
next Tab you can define an Input
Message which looks similar to a
10
FIGURE 4
Finally a useful Shortcut to
enter the current date and
time in a Worksheet is CTRL and ; for
the date, and CTRL and : for the
time. These are hard coded values
(useful for a development log) as
opposed to =NOW(), which will
provide you with the date and time of
the last recalculation (useful for
printing reports).
Readers may also be interested
in the IT Faculty publication Twenty
principles for good spreadsheet practice
(see tinyurl.com/Excel-20Principles),
which explains and illustrates best
practice in spreadsheet origination.
John Tennent, chartered
accountant, managing
director at Corporate
Edge, and member of
the ICAEW IT Faculty and
ICAEW Excel Community
Advisory Committee
FINANCE & MANAGEMENT MAY 2016
Excel John Tenn ; May 2016 ; Finance and Management 25
25
06/05/2016 13:38
Proof sign off
Editor _______________________________
Account manager ____________________
Chief sub____________________________
Advertising __________________________
Art director __________________________
Picture editor ________________________