Microsoft Excel Timesaving Tips and Tricks

In today's world, Microsoft Excel is an absolute essential for any office worker, be it a high-end business or a small home office of a freelancer. With its many options, tasks and possibilities, this program can be somewhat confusing and very time-consuming. Thankfully, there are plenty of tips and tricks which you can apply in Microsoft Excel in order to save yourself some time and avoid tedious repetitive processes.

Ctrl key tricks

The control (Ctrl) key is useful in many programs, not only Excel. By pressing Ctrl key while selecting cells, you can select any cells, whether they are next to each other or not. For those of you having large Excel sheets, it can sometimes be a bit tedious to scroll over to the end of the sheet. This can be easily sped up by holding the Ctrl key, and using the arrow keys to navigate, you will jump to the last filled cell in that direction. If you need to enter the same formula, text or number into numerous cells, you can select them all, type your entry and then press Ctrl + Enter. This will in turn copy your entry automatically to all of the selected cells instantly.

Formulas

While many users are familiar with Excel formulas, some still go through various tasks for each of the cells manually. With these, you can do anything from adding and subtract numbers to adding dates to calculating various averages and running balances.

To keep track of your balance, you can create a simple Excel sheet, with A column containing deposits, B column containing withdrawals and the C column containing the balance after each withdrawal. To start off the C column, enter "=SUM(A2,-B2)"; for all of the following rows, enter your deposits and withdrawals. To keep the balance running, click on the filled in cell in the C column and double click the Fill handle.

To get a full list of formulas with examples and instructions on how to use them, you can visit Microsoft's examples of commonly used formulas page.