Debra’s Excel News–August 2024

Quick filter, fill blank cells, and more, in this month’s Excel news. Visit my Excel website for more tips, tutorials and videos, and check the index for past issues of this newsletter.

  • New on Contextures
  • Quick Tip: Excel Filter
  • Fill Blank Cells
  • Excel New Features
  • Excel World Championship
  • Monthly Photo – Old Spreadsheets

New on Contextures

1) Fiscal Year: I’ve added a new Excel sample file, and written details, for a fiscal period lookup table and lookup formulas.

2) Combine Text: I gave the combine text from 2 cells page a major update, with new sections, written steps and screen shots.

Quick Tip: Excel Filter

When you’re working in an Excel table, you might want to filter the list, to focus on specific data.

  • To quickly filter for a specific item, right-click on a cell with that item name
    • In the screen shot below, I want to see only the Oranges
  • In the right-click menu, click Filter, then click Filter By Selected Item.

Find more AutoFilter tips on my website.

right-click filter commands

Fill Blank Cells

Do you ever leave blank cells in a column, so it’s easier to read report headings? I used to work with lots of data like that, which was imported from an accounting system.

That setup works well for printing, but if you need to sort or filter that data, the blank cells can cause problems. Fortunately, there’s a quick trick to fill the blank cells, based on the values above.

fill blank cells

There are 3 main steps – 1) Select the blank cells, 2) Add a short formula, 3) Copy and paste as values. There’s a short Fill Blank Cells video on my site.

1) To select the blank cells only, follow these steps:

  • First, select the entire column that has the blank cells.
  • Next, on the Ribbon’s Home tab, click Find & Select
  • In the drop down list, click Go To Special
  • In the Go To Special dialog box, select Blanks, then click OK

2) With the blank cells selected, here’s how to fill them:

  • First, type an equal sign, then tap the Up arrow key , to select the cell above
  • Next, press Ctrl+Enter, to enter that formula in all the selected cells.

3) The final step is to change those formulas to values:

  • Once again, select the entire column
  • Next, copy the entire column, with the Ctrl+C shortcut
  • Finally, right-click on the selected column, and click the Paste Values command

Tip: If you need to fill blank cells frequently, there are macros on my website.

Excel’s New Features

If you’re using a subscription-based version of Excel, or Excel for the Web, new functions and features are added frequently.

To see which features and functions are available to you, check out the July edition of What’s New in Excel, on the Microsoft site.

At the bottom of that article, there’s a reference chart showing what features are in each version/edition. I use the Current Channel (CC), so check boxes and a new Office theme are available in my Excel files now.

The check boxes are nice, but I’m not a big fan of the new theme colours!

Excel check boxes and new theme colours

Excel World Championship

Do you remember the olden days, when the only spreadsheet battle was you vs. Excel? Now there are monthly Excel Esports battles online, then online playoff rounds, and final rounds, in person, at the Microsoft Excel World Championship in Las Vegas, in December. The next online battle is August 29th, if you’re interested!

Read about last year’s finals, in this entertaining Verge article, formatted like an old spreadsheet. Click on any cell, to see its address in the formula bar at the top.

Verge article Excel World Championships

Photo: Old Spreadsheets

Speaking of old spreadsheets, here’s last week’s quiz from my YouTube channel:

  • What spreadsheet program did Microsoft release before Excel?
    • Multigrid, Multiplan, Multicell or Multigraph

Only 51% got the correct answer — do you know what it was?

***************

Answer: Microsoft Multiplan version 1.00 for MS-DOS shipped on August 1, 1982.

In the photo below, you can see my copy of the Multiplan manual (1984), for the Apple Macintosh. See more fun facts about 1982 on the Microsoft site.

monthly photo

That’s it for this month! Thanks for reading my June Excel news, and you’ll get next month’s email on Tuesday, September 10th.

If you have any comments or questions, please send let me know!.

Get Monthly Excel Tips!

Don’t miss my monthly Excel newsletter! You’ll get quick tips, article links, and a bit of fun. Add your email, and click Subscribe.

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Stay in Touch!

That’s it for this month, and you’ll get my next monthly newsletter on Tuesday, August 13th!

If you have any comments or questions, please let me know.

– – Debra

P.S. Visit my Contextures site for more Excel tips, tutorials and videos.

Original source: https://contexturesblog.com/archives/2024/08/13/debras-excel-news-august-2024/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=debras-excel-news-august-2024

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