1. Use Smart Tags in XP
Office XP features Smart Tags, which are like intelligent links to websites or locations on your PC's hard disk. Excel will recognise certain words and show Smart Tag action buttons next to them. Go to the AutoCorrect options part of the Tools menu and select Smart Tags to see which words it will recognise.
2. Spot corrections and errors
If you share Excel documents with others, it can be useful to see any changes they have made. Excel 2000 used red triangular indicators to highlight cells in which there were comments. In Excel 2002, there are purple indicators for Smart Tags and green ones for possible errors in formulas. Options can be found in the Tools menu, under the Error Checking tab of Options.
3. Open older macros
You will probably not be able to open old macros (from Excel 97 or 2000 workbooks) in Excel 2002 as the program will throw up a security warning notice. If you need to use old macros, go to the Tools menu and select Options, Security, then Macro Security and make sure Low is selected. Under Trusted Sources, place a tick in the Trust add-ins and Trust Visual Basic boxes. You will then need to restart Windows before you can run your old macros.
4. View important cells
Using the Watch window you can keep an eye on important cells in a spreadsheet. Click on a cell containing data and go to the Tools menu, choose Formula Auditing and then Show Watch Window. Click on Add Watch and it will display values and formulas for any cell of any open workbook.
5. Use labels in cells
You can make Excel work with labels you have given to cells instead of having to use the cell position ('Profit' instead of 'A6', for example). Go to Options in the Tools menu, and click on the Calculation tab, then tick the 'Accept labels in formulas' box.
6. Create formulas
Create a formula by clicking on the Paste Function tool (which is marked 'fx') on the standard toolbar. If you select a function from the list, its description will appear in the dialogue box, and the Help button will explain more about the formula. Alternatively, clicking on the equals sign in the formula bar will display a list of recently used functions.
7. Links
If you are seeing error messages about broken or invalid links to other workbooks or other applications, go to the Options part of the Tools menu and choose the Workbook Options tab. Make sure the box marked 'Update Remote References' is ticked. If you tick the box marked 'Save External Link Values', you won't have to worry about maintaining links but your file may end up significantly larger.
8. Create subtotals
It's easy to create sums of columns using the AutoSum tool but what about subtotals? Creating these needn't be hard either. Just use the function =SUBTOTAL (9,B2:B10). The 9 is a function number, representing SUM, and you should replace the cell references with the ones from your own worksheet. You could place it in cell B11 and then repeat it with figures below, say =SUBTOTAL (9,B12:B20), in cell B21. If you then used the AutoSum tool in cell B22 it would just display the sum of the subtotals, from cells B11 and B21.
9. Delete vs clear
There two ways to remove information from cells: Delete and Clear. Clicking on a cell and selecting Delete (or pressing Del or Backspace) will remove the cell's value or formula, but any formatting and comments will remain in place. If you want to return the cell to its original state, with no formatting, choose Clear instead.
10. Informative printouts
Many of us have spreadsheets that spread over more than a page. If you want your column titles to print on every page, go to the File menu, click on Page Setup and go to the Sheet tab. Click on the red arrow in the box marked 'Rows to repeat at top' and select the rows that contain your column titles, then click on OK.
11. Delete comments
You can delete all the comments from your worksheet at once, for instance if you have finished the sheet and want to distribute it without annotations. Press Control, Shift and O at the same time, and this will select all the cells in the worksheet that contain comments. Right-click on one of them and select Delete Comment, then click anywhere on the sheet and all the comments will have vanished.
12. Keep track of online orders
When you order online, it can be hard to keep a record of all your orders. You can, however, transfer the table from the confirmation email the retailer sends you into an Excel workbook. Open the email and click at the start of the table, then hold down Shift and click at the end of the table. Right-click on it and choose Copy, then open a blank Excel worksheet. Right-click on a cell and choose Paste. You may have to correct the formatting for it to look better.
13. Figuring out formulas
If you have a formula that's puzzling you because you can't figure out how it was derived, click on the cell that contains it, and choose the Auditing option in the Tools menu, and select Trace Precedents. You will see blue dots in the relevant cells, with arrows pointing towards the formula. When you have finished, choose Remove All Arrows.
14. Import finance data
You can import data from most online banks and finance programs into Excel, but it's often not quite as simple as just opening the document in Excel. It will usually be in Comma Separated Value (.csv) format. In Excel, click on the File menu and choose Open, then choose 'Text Files (*.txt, *.prn, *.csv)' from the 'Files of type' box, and select the CSV file you obtained from the bank website. Once it has opened, just adjust the column widths so they look right.
15. Show zeros the door
You can remove zeros that you don't need from your cells by going to Tools, Options and then View, and removing the tick from the Zero values box. If you want zeros to appear in certain cells, give those cells the custom format '0;-0;;@'. To enter a custom format, go to Format and Cells, and choose the Number tab, then select Custom and enter the format. For dashes to appear instead of zeros, use the custom format '0;-0;?-?;@'.
