Post on 21-Jun-2015
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Finance, Valuation, Risk & Modelling
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Change your life with Excel. Completing Data Using the Go To Box
elcome to Change Your Life with Excel, the
column that delves to the bottom of Microsoft®
Excel’s jamboree bag and pulls out some surprises
guaranteed to delight.
This month we’re going to stick our finger right in the very
bottom corner of the bag to pick out one of Excel’s most
obscure features, but before we do let’s have a look at a
useful time saver.
The features covered here are based on Excel 2003
however most can still be found in other versions.
Time Saving Tip Completing Data Using the Go To Box
Have you ever had a spreadsheet that looks a bit like the
example below?
The date column contains a lot of blank cells because the
date is only entered once even though it applies to rows
below. With this arrangement you wouldn’t be able to e.g.
sort or filter by dates. We therefore need a way of filling
in the blank cells.
Of course if there isn’t much data you could fill in the
blank cells manually. However, you may not be surprised
to learn that there is a very quick method to achieve this.
• Highlight the range of cells containing the blank
cells. It doesn’t matter if you select a slightly
larger range as long as it doesn’t contain any
other blank cells which you want to leave alone
• Select Edit | Go To... from the Menu Bar or
CTRL-G on the keyboard
• Select the Special... button
• From the dialogue box choose Blanks
• Select OK
W
By Leigh Drake Director Arc Business Processes www.arcbusiness.com.au
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Finance, Valuation, Risk & Modelling
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You will now see that all the blank cells within the range
you selected have been highlighted.
• Without clicking anywhere in the worksheet type
“=A2” or just type “=” and select cell A2
This references the value in cell A2 (“5/01/2009”) into the
first blank cell highlighted, in this case A3
• Hit CTRL-ENTER
This last keyboard command enters the formula into all
the highlighted cells which fills all the blank cells with the
date immediately above.
Now you just need to freeze the dates.
• Highlight the range of dates
• Select Edit |Copy from the Menu Bar
• Select Edit | Paste Special... from the Menu Bar
• From the dialogue box choose Values
• Select OK
This now replaces the formula with its value and allows
you to manipulate the data at will (leaving the formula in
place would give incorrect results after e.g. sorting).
Want a slightly quicker method to freeze values? Of
course you do. You just don’t have this sort of time on
your hands.
• Again highlight the range of dates
• Right click on the right hand black border
• Keeping the right mouse button clicked, drag to
the right and then back to the left in one
movement
• Choose Copy Here as Values Only from the
menu which appears
So there you have it. In a matter of seconds you can fill in
large ranges of blank cells with the required data.
E-TIPS
Finance, Valuation, Risk & Modelling
your one-partner solution for building skills and knowledge
Go To is a very useful feature. You’ll have noticed that
there are many other options available on the Go To
Special dialogue box. Have a play and see what other
cool things you can do with it.
Secret – The Excel Camera
Now for 2 of Excel’s best kept secrets. These are
particularly useful for creating professional looking
reports.
We’ll get onto the Camera feature shortly but first we’ll
look at its slightly inferior sibling Copy Picture.
Have you ever wanted to display, say, a table of data on
a worksheet but the other contents on that worksheet
dictate the column widths or row heights such as the
example below?
The column widths required for the 2nd table are not
appropriate for the 1st table.
The trick here is to create one or both tables elsewhere,
preferably on another worksheet, where you can set the
appropriate column widths. Leave sufficient space on the
main display worksheet.
In this instance we will create the 1st table elsewhere.
Once you are happy with its layout:
• Highlight the table
• Hold down the SHIFT key (this is the secret!)
• Select Edit | Copy Picture...
Copy Picture does not appear as an option unless you
hold the SHIFT key.
• From the dialogue box choose As shown on
screen
• Select OK
• Select the cell to copy the table to. In this
example cell B2 (you only need select the top
left cell for the range you are copying to)
• Select Edit | Paste
The 1st table now appears as a picture above the 2nd
table with the appropriate column widths. It can now be
moved around the screen completely independently of
the gridlines.
This is great but it’s not all over yet. The disadvantage
with this is that we have created a static image. If the
original table needs changing we have to go through the
whole copying process again. Well no we don’t, because
it’s time to get the camera out.
The Camera feature does pretty much the same thing as
Copy Picture but it takes a real time image i.e. whenever
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you change the source of the image, the image changes
too. Marvellous!
Now, where did we put the camera? It’s not in any Menu
option, nor is it on any of the Toolbars. The secret here is
that it’s a custom command which you need to add to
your Toolbar (see last month’s newsletter for how to
customise the Toolbar).
You will find the command under the Tools category.
• Highlight the source table
• Select the Camera icon from wherever you
placed it on your Toolbar
• Click the location where you require the image
(once done you can freely slide it around to
wherever you want. Hold the ALT key down if
you want to snap it to the gridlines)
Now we have a dynamic image. Change anything in the
source table and it instantly changes the image.
One final note. You may find that you have an unwanted
border around the image. To remove this:
• Right click inside the image
• From the menu choose Format Picture...
• Select the Colors and Lines tab in the dialogue
box
• From the Line Color drop down box choose No
Line
• Select OK
So there you have it. The Camera feature allows you to
create great looking reports and is especially useful for
dashboards which often have a mixture of charts and
tables on the one page.
If you think it’s all over, it is now!
Until next time, happy Excelling.