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How many types of the predefined freeze panes are there in Excel?

  Freeze Panes in Excel is used to fix any frame or row or section of the table to access the data located so down below so that the user can see the header’s name as well. There is 3 type of Freeze Panes option available in View menu tab under Window section, Freeze Panes, Freeze Top Row and Freeze First Column. Freeze Panes is used to freeze the worksheet from the point where we keep our cursor. This freezes both the row and column both. Then to freeze a Row and a Column, we have a separate option to freeze each of them. Once we do that, we will see some portion of the worksheet will not move until we unfreeze it.

Protect Formula Cells

The use of worksheet protection in Excel is a little strange. Using the steps below, you can quickly protect just the formula cells in your worksheet. It seems unusual, but all 16 billion cells on a worksheet start out with their Locked property set to True. You need to unlock all of the cells first: Select all cells by using the icon above and to the left of cell A1. Press  Ctrl+1  (that is the number 1) to open the Format Cells dialog. In the Format Cells dialog, go to the Protection tab. Uncheck Locked. Click OK. While all cells are still selected, select Home, Find & Select, Formulas. At this point, only the formula cells are selected. Press  Ctrl+1  again to display the Format Cells dialog. On the Protection tab, choose Locked to lock all of the formula cells. Locking cells does nothing until you protect the worksheet. On the Review tab, choose Protect Sheet. In the Protect Sheet dialog, choose if you want people to be able to select your formula cells or no...

Protect Formula Cells in Excel

The use of worksheet protection in Excel is a little strange. Using the steps below, you can quickly protect just the formula cells in your worksheet. It seems unusual, but all 16 billion cells on a worksheet start out with their Locked property set to True. You need to unlock all of the cells first: Select all cells by using the icon above and to the left of cell A1. Press  Ctrl+1  (that is the number 1) to open the Format Cells dialog. In the Format Cells dialog, go to the Protection tab. Uncheck Locked. Click OK. While all cells are still selected, select Home, Find & Select, Formulas. At this point, only the formula cells are selected. Press  Ctrl+1  again to display the Format Cells dialog. On the Protection tab, choose Locked to lock all of the formula cells. Locking cells does nothing until you protect the worksheet. On the Review tab, choose Protect Sheet. In the Protect Sheet dialog, choose if you want people to be able to select your formula cells or no...

3D Map in Excel

3D Maps ( Power Map) is available in the Office 365 versions of Excel 2013 and all versions of Excel 2016. Using 3D Maps, you can build a pivot table on a map. You can fly through your data and animate the data over time. 3D Maps lets you see five dimensions: latitude, longitude, color, height, and time. Using it is a fascinating way to visualize large data sets. 3D Maps can work with simple one-sheet data sets or with multiple tables added to the Data Model. Select the data. On the Insert tab, choose 3D Map. (The icon is located to the right of the Charts group.) If you have Excel 2013 you might have to download Power Map Preview from Microsoft to use the feature. Next, you need to choose which fields are your geography fields. This could be Country, State, County, Zip Code, or even individual street addresses. You are given a list of the fields in your data set and drop zones named Height, Category, and Time. Hover over any point on the map to get details such as last sale date and a...

Flash Fill

Excel 2013 added a new data-cleansing tool called Flash Fill. In the figure below, you see full names in column A. You want to get the person’s first initial and last name in column B. Rather than try to puzzle out  =PROPER(LEFT(A2,1)&" "&MID(A2,FIND(" ",A2)+1,50)) , you simply type a sample of what you want in B2. Type the first initial in B3. Excel sees what you are doing and “grays in” a suggested result. Press  Enter  to accept the suggestion. Bam! All of the data is filled in. Look carefully through your data for exceptions to the rule. Two people here have middle initials listed. Do you want the middle initials to appear? If so, correct the suggestion for Dennis P. Jancsy in cell B4. Flash Fill will jump into action and fix Martha K. Wendel in B9 and any others that match the new pattern. The status bar will indicate how many changes were made. In the above case, Excel gurus could figure out the formula. But Flash Fill is easier. In the example shown b...

What if Analysis

Sometimes, you want to see many different results from various combinations of inputs. Provided that you have only two input cells to change, the Data Table feature will do a sensitivity analysis. Using the loan payment example, say that you want to calculate the price for a variety of principal balances and for a variety of terms. Make sure that the formula you want to model is in the top-left corner of a range. Put various values for one variable down the left column and various values for another variable across the top. From the Data tab, select What-If Analysis, Data Table.... You have values along the top row of the input table. You want Excel to plug those values into a certain input cell. Specify that input cell for Row Input Cell. You have values along the left column. You want those plugged into another input cell. Specify that cell for the Column Input Cell. When you click OK, Excel repeats the formula in the top-left column for all combinations of the top row and left colum...

Goal Seek feature in Excel

Have you ever found yourself plugging in successively higher and lower values into an input cell, hoping to arrive at a certain answer? A tool that is built in to Excel does exactly this set of steps. Select the cell with the Payment formula. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, look for the What-If Analysis dropdown and choose Goal Seek…. The figure below shows how you can try to set the payment in B5 to $425 by changing cell B1 Goal Seek finds the correct answer within a second. Note that the formula in B5 stays intact. The only thing that changes is the input value typed in B1. Also, with Goal Seek, you are free to experiment with changing other input cells. You can still get the $425 loan payment and the $25,995 car if your banker will offer you a 71.3379-month loan!

Consolidate Data with Excel built in feature

There are two  consolidation tools in Excel.  You have three data sets. Each has names down the left side and months across the top. Notice that the names are different, and each data set has a different number of months. Data set 2 has five months instead of 3 across the top. Some people are missing and others are added. Data set 3 has four months across the top and a few new names. The Consolidate command will join data from all three worksheets in to one worksheet. You want to combine these into a single data set. The first tool is the Consolidate command on the Data tab. Choose a blank section of the workbook before starting the command. Use the RefEdit button to point to each of your data sets and then click Add. In the lower left, choose Top Row and Left Column. In the above figure, notice three annoyances: Cell A1 is always left blank, the data in A is not sorted, and if a person was missing from a data set, then cells are left empty instead of being filled with 0. Fill...

Year Over Year calculation using Pivot Table

Instead of creating a formula outside of the pivot table, you can do this inside the pivot table. Start from the image with column D empty. Drag Revenue a second time to the Values area. Look in the Columns section of the Pivot Table Fields panel. You will see a tile called Values that appears below Date. Drag that tile so it is below the Date field. Your pivot table should look like this: Double-click the Sum of Revenue2 heading in D4 to display the Value Field Settings dialog. Click on the tab for Show Values As. Change the drop-down menu to % Difference From. Change the Base Field to Date. Change the Base Item to (Previous Item). Type a better name than Sum of Revenue2 - perhaps % Change. Click OK. You will have a mostly blank column D (because the pivot table can't calculate a percentage change for the first year. Right-click the D and choose Hide.

Pivot table for Each item in Report Filter - Hidden Feature

The pivot table below shows products across the top and customers down the side. The pivot table is sorted so the largest customers are at the top. The Sales Rep field is in the report filter. If you open the Rep dropdown, you can filter the data to any one sales rep. This is a great way to create a report for each sales rep. Each report summarizes the revenue from a particular salesperson‘s customers, with the biggest customers at the top. And you get to see the split between the various products. The Excel team has hidden a feature called Show Report Filter Pages. Select any pivot table that has a field in the report filter. Go to the Analyze tab (or the Options tab in Excel 2007/2010). On the far left side is the large Options button. Next to the large Options button is a tiny dropdown arrow. Click this dropdown and choose Show Report Filter Pages.... Excel asks which field you want to use. Select the one you want (in this case the only one available) and click OK. Over the next few...

Up and Down Markers using Conditional Formatting

There is a super-obscure way to add up/down markers to a pivot table to indicate an increase or a decrease. Somewhere outside the pivot table, add columns to show increases or decreases. In the figure below, the difference between I6 and H6 is 3, but you just want to record this as a positive change. Use  SIGN(I6-H6)  to get either +1, 0, or -1. Select the two-column range showing the sign of the change and then select Home, Conditional Formatting, Icon Sets, 3 Triangles. (I have no idea why Microsoft called this option 3 Triangles, when it is clearly 2 Triangles and a Dash, as shown below.) With the same range selected, now select Home, Conditional Formatting, Manage Rules, Edit Rule. Check the Show Icon Only checkbox. With the same range selected, press  Ctrl+C  to copy. Select the first Tuesday cell in the pivot table. From the Home tab, open the Paste dropdown and choose Linked Picture. Excel pastes a live picture of the icons above the table. At this point, adju...

Compare two columns with Go To Special

  In the figure below, say that you want to find any changes between column A and column D. Select the data in A2:A9 and then hold down the Ctrl key while you select the data in D2:D9. Select, Home, Find & Select, Go To Special. Then, in the Go To Special dialog, choose Row Differences. Click OK. Only the items in column A that do not match the items in column D are selected. Use a red font to mark these items, as shown below. Caution This technique works only for lists that are mostly identical. If you insert one new row near the top of the second list, causing all future rows to be offset by one row, each of those rows is marked as a row difference