Although a spreadsheet should be easy to read and follow, this should rarely be at the expense of efficiency. Sorting also will speed the calculation process of many functions significantly.Moving beyond structure, formatting also can cause problems. Excel has a rich set of lookup and reference formulas, some of which require that your data be sorted in a logical order. If you find you are repeating the same data over and over for two or more rows in one of these columns, resist the temptation to use blank cells to indicate repetition.Make sure your data is sorted whenever possible. With this in mind, you should set up tables with column headings going across the first row of your table and related data laid out in a continuous manner directly underneath their appropriate headings. In such scenarios, you can use these features to their full potential only when you’ve laid out your data in a very basic table.It is no coincidence that Excel spreadsheets can comprise 1,048,576 rows (65,536 pre-2007) but only 16,384 columns (256 pre-2007).If you start changing this formatting, you will not be able to tell at a glance if the contents of a cell are text or numeric. By default, numbers in Excel are right-aligned and text is left-aligned, and there are good reasons to leave it this way. These can then be used for criteria for features such as Advanced Filter and Database functions.People also tinker with the alignment of cell data. Some very good universal colors to consider using in your spreadsheets are black, white, and gray.It is always a good idea to leave at least three blank rows above your table ( at least three, preferably more). Often the overuse of formatting adds size to your workbook, and although your workbook might look like a work of art to you, it might look terrible to someone else. Although they don’t necessarily realize it, this time frequently comes at the expense of efficiency.
Excel Lock Certain Cells Full Potential OnlyThe Microsoft knowledge base is full of frequently encountered problems with merged cells. Generally, you do not want formula cells to be formatted as text!Merged cells can also cause problems. Worse still, any cell housing a formula that references a text-formatted cell also will be formatted as text. All data entered into cells formatted as text become text, even if you meant for them to be numbers or dates. Perhaps headings are an exception to this rule.Format cells as text only when completely necessary. If you have altered the default alignment, you will be left scratching your head. This forces Excel to examine potentially thousands, if not millions, of cells it otherwise could have ignored.Assume, for example, that you have a table of data ranging from cell A1 to cell H1000. Use the Horizontal drop-down to select Center Across Selection or right-click and choose Format Cells from the shortcut menu (pre-2007, Format → Cells).Another enormous mistake users often make in Excel formulas is referencing entire columns. The arrow in the bottom right will display the Format dialog with the Alignment tab active. Chrome for mac remove malwareYou still can eliminate the need to constantly update your formula references to incorporate new data as it is added to a table by using dynamic named ranges.Another common problem with poorly designed spreadsheets is painfully slow recalculation. You would use this reference so that when new data is added to the table, it will be referenced in the formulas automatically.This is a very bad habit to form and you should almost always avoid it. In other words, your reference might look something like A:H, or possibly A1:H65536. Because your table might continue to grow (as you add new data), it is common to reference the entire table, incorporating all rows. They are best suited to referencing single cells. Address it properly and do not use a “Band-Aid” approach.Array formulas are another common cause of trouble. If you need to run your spreadsheet in manual calculation mode, you have a design problem. If " Windows of active workbook” is checked, uncheck it, and then select the window arrangement you prefer and click OK.If you select Tiled, you will be presented with your workbooks in a tiled fashion, as shown with blank workbooks in Figure 1-1.Selecting Horizontal gives you a view of your workbooks in a single stack, one on top of the other, as in Figure 1-2.Checking the Vertical option will place all your open workbooks side by side, as shown in Figure 1-3.Finally, as shown in Figure 1-4, selecting the Cascade option will layer all open workbooks one on top of the other.Once your workbooks are displayed in your preferred view, you can easily move data between them (e.g., copy, paste, drag and drop).If you think you might want to return to a view you created, you can save this preferred view as a workspace. That should make the rest of your hacking much easier.To open more than one workbook at a time, select the Office button → Open…, press the Ctrl key (⌘ key on the Mac) while selecting the workbooks you want to open, and then click Open (pre-2007, select File → Open).From any of the workbooks (it doesn’t matter which one), select Windows → View → Arrange All (pre-2007, select Window → Arrange). Although PivotTables might seem very daunting when first encountered, we highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with this powerful Excel feature because once you master PivotTables, you will wonder how you survived without them!At the end of the day, if you remember nothing else about spreadsheet design, remember that Excel works best when all related data is laid out in one continuous table. Another alternative that is often overlooked is the use of Excel’s PivotTable feature, discussed in Chapter 4. Also, the Excel Help offers some good examples on how you can use these formulas on large tables of data to return results based on multiple criteria. When large numbers of arrays reference large ranges, your workbook’s performance will suffer, sometimes to the point where it becomes unusable and you are forced to run your spreadsheet in manual calculation mode.Excel’s database functions provide many alternatives to array formulas, as discussed in " Sum or Count Cells While Avoiding Error Values”. You can also click the Maximize button on any of the windows in your workspace. To restore your Excel workspace to one full window of a particular workbook, just double-click the title bar (on the Mac, click the green Zoom button in the upper left of the window) appearing on any one of your workbooks. Xlw rather than the standard. When saving your workspace, the file extension will be. If it says “(General),” change it before typing in the code.To enable grouping, first name the range of cells you want to have grouped so that the data shows automatically on other worksheets. If the drop-down menu says “Workbook” or “Worksheet,” then you in the private module. You can confirm that you’re in the private module by looking at the state of the drop-down menu in the upper left of the code window—this window is usually labeled something like “Workbook - sheetname(Code)”.
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