Archives for March 2012

Use Conditional Formatting in Excel to Highlight Cell Values that Match Criteria

Conditional Formatting in Excel

Conditional Formatting in Excel

Conditional Formatting has been available for many years in Excel. However, beginning with Excel 2007, Conditional Formatting got a major boost in its ease-of use and new visualization tools.

In this tutorial, I demonstrate how to use Conditional Formatting to highlight – via formatting – the cells in a range that anser “TRUE” to a set of criteria. For example, is the cell value “Above Average” or is it Greater than the value in a Target Cell.

How Does Conditional Formatting Work?

Conditional Formatting is “dynamic.” If you update the values – or formulas that generate cell values” the cell that receive the Conditional Formatting may change – based upon the criteria that you set as “the condition.”

Versions of Excel Covered

For this lesson, I demonstrate Conditional Formatting in BOTH Excel 2010 and Excel 2003.

Learn More About Conditional Formatting

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Follow this link to watch this Excel Tutorial in High Definition on my YouTube Channel – DannyRocksExcels

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How to Analyze Point-of-Sale Data with an Excel Pivot Table

Advantages of Pivot Tables

Advantages of Pivot Tables

This is the first in a series of tutorials that I am creating in partnership with Tri-Technical Systems – a leading provider of Point-of-sale (POS) Systems. In this video lesson, I use an Excel Pivot Table to present the information that I require from a standard “Inventory by Location” report.

Point-of-Sale Reports

Most POS Systems allow you to print out standard reports – compact, professionally formatted “snapshots” of your inventory status, sales data and customer information. Likewise, most POS Systems will allow you to easily export the data behind these reports to Excel – where you can analyze or “number crunch” the data.

Advantages of Pivot Tables

  • Pivot Tables combine the best elements of Subtotals, Outlines and Filtered Reports.
  • With a Pivot Table, you select only the Fields that you wish to focus on.
  • You can quickly reposition any field on your Pivot Table – e.g. change it from a Vertical to a Horizontal position.
  • Pivot Tables allow you to easily add multiple summaries – e.g. Sum, Average, Percentage of Total, etc. without writing a Formula!
  • It is impossible to harm your underlying data when you work with a Pivot Table because you are working with a “virtual snapshot” of your data. You cannot directly change any value in a Pivot Table Report!

Learn More About Pivot Tables

Pivot Tables are easy to learn. However, it does take practice if you want to really tap into the analytical power of  a Pivot Table Report. Fortunately, I have a great resource for you – a 90 minute focused video tutorial on Pivot Tables. Follow this link to go to the information page for my Excel 2010 Pivot Table DVD-ROM. I have also created Pivot Table videos for Excel 2007 and Excel 2003.

Watch Tutorial in High Definition

You can watch this Excel Tutorial in High Definition on my YouTube Channel – DannyRocksExcels

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How to Protect Cells that Hold Formulas in Excel

Protect Cells w Formulas

Protect Excel Formula Cells

Learning how to Protect the Excel Worksheet Cells that contain Formulas is a three-step process. This process tends to confuse and frustrate many Excel users. Some of the steps seem counter-intuitive when you first begin the process. That is why I created this video tutorial – To demonstrate each of the steps; to remove the confusion.

First, I show you how this is done in Excel 2010 / Excel 2007. Next, I show you how to protect the Formula Cells in Excel 2003.

Key Concept for Protecting Formula Cells

By default, all cells in an Excel Workbook are “Locked!”

So, if you are going to allow a user to input current values in the worksheet, you must first “select” the input cells and then, “Unlock” them.

Protecting Excel Worksheet

The final step in the process is to Protect the Worksheet. I rarely use a password for the worksheet because I tend to forget it and then I cannot even access the protected worksheet!

Take care in the Protect Sheet Dialog Box to select only the options that best suit your purpose. For example, in this video tutorial, I choose to limit users to select only the cells that I unlocked in steps 1 and 2.

Go To Special Dialog Box

The quickest way to select the cells that you wish to “unlock” is to open the Go To Special Dialog Box. There, choose “Constants.” You can limit the constants to “Numbers” as I do in this tutorial.

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Watch Tutorial in High Definition

Follow this link to view this Excel Tutorial in High Definition on my YouTube Channel – DannyRocksExcels