Got Microsoft Excel Questions?

Our Excel cheat sheet seems to have been a hit with readers so far. If you haven’t grabbed it yet, you can still download it for free.

So many people told me that they struggle and fight with Excel I thought I would offer you the opportunity to decide what should go in the next one! I will do my hardest to get answers for all the best or most popular questions.

Just add your suggestion, question, idea or problem in the comments.

Also if you particularly like a suggestion anyone else makes, just point it out in the comments too!

We have Excel experts on hand to supply me with the answers, so get asking your Excel questions in the comments :)

Posted on December 4, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Excel

Comments

33 Responses to “Got Microsoft Excel Questions?”

  1. Debra on December 4th, 2008 7:48 pm

    I struggle with “sums”, totaling columns, etc. I’ve seen some excel sheets where you can change certain numbers and see the re-calculation. As a creative/visual person, that just stumps me.

  2. Jen Knoedl on December 4th, 2008 8:22 pm

    If column “A” has names and column “B” has a list of associated information seperated by commas, can I seperate and transpose the information in “B” to insert under its corresponding “A”?

    For instance…

    If “A1″ is “Bob” and “B1″ is a list of his 5 children seperated by commas, can I make “B1″ expand below (in column B) so that I know that they still belong to Bob? Without copying over “A2″ Sally (or whatever names are after Bob)?

  3. Angela on December 5th, 2008 7:25 pm

    Occasionally I have issues with formulas not functioning properly after saving a spreadsheet originally created in 97/2003 as a new one in 2007.

    To be a little more specific, I get a message that some things that won’t update. What am I missing?

  4. Valerie on December 17th, 2008 5:30 am

    I was wondering how many tabs on the bottom I can have in one folder.

    I have all my consigners under one file and it shuts down when I want to add another tab.

    I was told 7500, I only have almost 500..

    Thank You!

    Val Rook

  5. Chris Garrett on December 18th, 2008 6:50 pm

    @Debra – Hope the excel tutorial PDF download on the most recent post helps :)

    @Jen – I haven’t found a solution yet I am afraid :(

    @Angela – Any idea which bits will not work?

    @Valeria – Apparently it is “Limited by available memory” so the more memory you have the more you can add.

  6. Microsoft Excel in 10 Minutes : Codswallop on December 18th, 2008 6:51 pm

    [...] put a call out for Microsoft Excel questions in a recent post and the most popular suggestion was for some kind of quick introduction or [...]

  7. Alex on January 5th, 2009 7:31 pm

    Hi,

    I am getting very frustrated! I don;t even know what exactly to call it to search or ask about it, but i’ll give it a shot. I have been working with this spreadsheet for a while now, and we are passing it around to 3 different parties. The most recent time I got it back to put information into it, i have had a couple of issues. First of all it asks me to enable macros when there aren’t any and then it crashes when I try to input data. Second of all, I used to use the status bar in the Autofilter function to get totals when I filtered, and now I don’t get those totals?
    Can anyone help me??
    THANKS!

  8. Craig R on January 8th, 2009 8:38 am

    I am looking for a formula that will allow me to sum a column and if the number is positive then I want the value to show “0″ if a neg number I want it the show the true value. Example A1:A10 the sum is 10 the value will be “0″ or if A1:A10 the sum is -10 the vale will be “-10″ please help

  9. Cris Sutton on January 19th, 2009 5:52 pm

    How can I re-order the list in a chart legend without reselecting the source data?
    CS

  10. Tracey N on February 6th, 2009 7:49 pm

    I have windows xp and excel 2007. In an excel spreadsheet, is there a way to change the apperance such as color of a row or a column or as set of selected cells so that they are all highlighted so they they may be seen better. I have tried figuring this out before. I do not need to use conditional formating. I need this to work everytime I open an excel file. Something like an option I can change or and add-in I can down load to all this to happen?

    Thank You
    Tracey N

  11. steven dsouza on February 22nd, 2009 5:08 pm

    I have excel 2007 but the formula written on one cell and copied to anothe cell does not work unless the formula is retyped in the next cell.what could be the problem.Please advice

  12. steven dsouza on February 22nd, 2009 5:16 pm

    I have excel 2007 but am facing problem with formula.When I copy the formula to the next cell it doesn’t work and instead I have to retype the formula.Please advice on the same

  13. Melinda on February 23rd, 2009 9:33 pm

    i am working on a list for my work, one of my supervisors once gave me a excel file that when i put an employee number in it would auto fill the name, and manager, i need to know how he did that so that i can make another file. please help. i need it to be that when i input the employee number the first and last name tech manager and the phone number gets filled in. thanks for any and all help i can get with this.

  14. Theresa Steele on April 1st, 2009 10:55 pm

    example:
    Column A $5000.00
    Column B $200.00
    Each month we will pay the amount in column B and want it to deduct from Column A. How do I do this?

    Thank you,
    Theresa

  15. aj on April 2nd, 2009 4:16 pm

    Hi

    I am new to excel and need to create a formula that will notify me by date when a bill needs to be paid.

    Thank You

    A

  16. Jay on April 3rd, 2009 5:39 pm

    I am creating a training roster for my fire department. We have numerous training classes and different people attend each class. I would like to be able to enter the name of a member in a cell and see all of the classes that they attended in a seperate cell.D oes anyone know how I can do this.

  17. Mike on April 29th, 2009 3:58 am

    I have a spreadsheet that I use several formulas to calculate averages and totals and such. Recently I only have some of the formulas working and the other’s are there, but do no calculations.
    Any ideas. Thanks in advance

  18. Amir on June 9th, 2009 7:02 pm

    Hi! Does anyone know how to search for numbers within text? For example, suppose A1 reads “John Doe 47″. Am I able to tell Excel to return just the numerical portion (i.e., 47) in another cell? Thanks!

  19. Amol on August 5th, 2009 9:33 am

    Hi,

    I have one SAP BW report consisting of 7000 lines in MS excel.
    The staring 3000 lines are perfectly correct and I could see the data and compare it with web report.
    But after 3000th row most of the lines get blacked
    out alternately.
    If anybody has faced this issue before kindly share the solution.
    Thanks

  20. Dave on August 25th, 2009 9:45 am

    Let’s say you have a typical Microsoft excel sheet and on the bottom you have standard table. You have 5 rows vertically on the left of job codes, like (1-engineering) (2-coordinating) (3-support) (etc). And five columns horizontal on top of building floors, like (1st floor) (2nd floor) (3rd floor) (etc).  And above that whole table you have a simple time sheet layout consisting of 4 cells running horizontal as follows  Date , floor level , job code, and hours ,  I want to see if it is possible to input the information on the time sheet like (2) for floor level and (3) for job code and it will know what cell to reference on the table below with the hours..
     

  21. Alan on August 27th, 2009 5:29 am

    Hello, Excel-2007

    How to add a column of numbers one after the other to show a moving sum?

    3
    5 = 8
    -3 5
    2 7 etc
    -5 2

    Alan

  22. Jasmine on November 17th, 2009 4:24 am

    I’m new to excel and I’m trying to type in a calendar date example November 27, 2009 and it keeps turning into ##### when I click out of the box. Can someone give me some advice? It would be greatly appreciated.

    Thank you,

    Jasmine

  23. Mantu on January 14th, 2010 12:46 pm

    Hello,
    when i filter excel sheet and copy any colomn for paste, it is many dificult and paste all colomn data with hide data, i don’t understand why it is.
    pls help anybody?

  24. Mantu on January 14th, 2010 12:49 pm

    this problem is related in excel 2007, but 2003 excel is good but i am working with 2007 excel pls help regarding this problem.

  25. Mantu on January 14th, 2010 12:55 pm

    suppose u filter only 25 record in 2000 record
    and copy filtered 25 record but when u paste those 25 record it is not paste 25 record only it is paste all colomn record. suppose i filter between A1:A200 total 25 rows only, and paste accordingly but when i paste these records it is paste all hide record also. i dont understand about this problem. pls help any body….
    Email : mkj005@gmail.com

  26. Liz on February 4th, 2010 12:27 am

    Is there a way to separate a name into 2 columns. My existing database shows names in this format:

    Smith, John

    I want to do a mail merge and only require just the first name.

    Thanks!

  27. Rich on May 31st, 2010 4:45 pm

    I have a list of customer names and account totals but the customer name is not repeated down the column. For example:
    Customer A
    blank row
    blank row
    Customer B
    blank row
    blank row
    blank row
    blank row
    Customer C
    blank row
    blank row

    I want it to look like this with some way to autofill:
    Customer A
    Customer A
    Customer A
    Customer B
    Customer B
    Customer B
    Customer B
    Customer B
    Customer C
    Customer C
    Customer C

    I would like to know how I can autofill the blank rows with the customers’ name, when I try auto fill it replaces all the other customers names with the name I tried to autofill.

    Can anyone please help?!

  28. DAS on June 29th, 2010 10:54 am

    I would like to insert a formula which will deliver the date & time,when i entered any data in a cell. I tried the “NOW()” but it is getting updated as soon as the excel is updated.

    Please advice for the same..

  29. Mike Whited on February 6th, 2011 9:50 am

    I have a spreadsheet that calculates numerical totals from different columns in several different ways. In one column there is a list of colors (some appear in several locations). Currently I have to manually identify the rows with a common color and construct the formula using all data in those rows. I would like to use logic to identify the color in this column and then automatically apply a common formula to only those rows selected by the color logic.

  30. Wade Neigel on April 10th, 2011 5:39 am

    Effect Function. If Npery is <1, Num error is returned. But sometimes Npery needs to be less than one. Example, payments are monthly but interest is annual. Is there a work around or another function?

  31. Leah on October 26th, 2011 5:05 pm

    The result I want is: the number of hours it took to complete a task.

    I have 2 columns, in each column is a date and time.
    How can i get the number of hours between date/time on the same row in each column?

  32. google +1 on October 30th, 2011 1:46 pm

    Considerably, the blogging site publish is in fact the greatest on this deserving topic. I concur using your selections and will thirstily appear ahead to find out your approaching updates. Stating many thanks will never just be adequate, for the phenomenal lucidity in your own writing. I will without delay get your feeds to stay knowledgeable of any updates. Delightful do the job and substantially results as part of your company endeavors! Have a very pleasant day

  33. JIM on December 13th, 2011 11:40 pm

    I have a column of numbers. Each has been multiplied by a factor containing 3 decimal places. Each result is also a 3 decimal place number. I need each of the numbers to be rounded to the nearest two places, and then to sum the result — without adding the 3d place that has been rounded!

    These are dollars and must be presented in dollar format. I don’t need or want any thousandths or smaller artifacts hanging around. Can ya hep me?

Leave a Reply