Walkenbach - John Walkenbachs favorite Excel 2010 tips & tricks

John Walkenbachs Favorite Excel 2010 Tips and Tricks

by John Walkenbach

John Walkenbachs Favorite Excel 2010 Tips and Tricks

Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
111 River St.
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com

Copyright 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.

For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010929318

ISBN: 978-0-470-47537-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

John Walkenbach is author of more than 50 spreadsheet books and lives in southern Arizona. Visit his Web site: http://spreadsheetpage.com.

Publishers Acknowledgments

Were proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Kelly Ewing

Acquisitions Editor: Katie Mohr

Technical Editor: Todd Meister

Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen

Media Development Project Manager: Laura Moss-Hollister

Media Development Assistant Project Manager: Jenny Swisher

Media Development Associate Producer: Douglas Kuhn

Media Development Quality Assurance: Marilyn Hummel

Editorial Assistant: Leslie Saxman

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees

Layout and Graphics: Samantha K. Cherolis

Proofreader: Laura Bowman

Indexer: Potomac Indexing, LLC

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley , Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings , Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek , Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder , Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele , Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey , Director of Composition Services

Introduction

Excel is a very popular program. Millions of people throughout the world use it on a regular basis. But its a safe bet that the vast majority of users have yet to discover some of the amazing things this product can do. If Ive done my job, youll find enough useful information in this book to help you use Excel on a new level.

This is the third edition of this book, and I added many new tips and beefed up many of the old tips based on feedback from readers of the previous editions.

What You Should Know

This book isnt a beginners guide to Excel. Rather, its a book for those who already use Excel but realize that they have a lot more to learn. This book is filled with tips and tricks that Ive learned over the years, and Im certain that about 99 percent of all Excel users will find something new and useful in these pages.

If you have absolutely no experience with Excel, this book might not be the best choice for you. To get the most out of this book, you should have some background in using Excel. Specifically, I assume that you know how to accomplish the following tasks with Excel:

Create workbooks, insert worksheets, save files, and perform other basic tasks.

Navigate through a workbook.

Use the Excel Ribbon and dialog boxes.

Use basic Windows features, such as file management and copy-and-paste techniques.

What You Should Have

To use this book, you need a copy of Microsoft Excel 2010 for Windows. If you use an older version of Excel, you should get one of the previous editions of this book.

As far as hardware goes for the computer you use to run Excel, the faster, the better. And, of course, the more memory in your system, the happier youll be.

Conventions Used in This Book

Take a minute to skim this section and learn some of the typographic conventions used throughout this book.

Formula listings

Formulas usually appear on a separate line in monospace font . For example, I might list the following formula: