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

18 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!

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