When you want to create a line break (line feed) in a cell, you press Alt + Enter, to start a new line. You can put one or more line breaks in a cell, to make the contents easier to read. But how can you find and replace line breaks in Excel?
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Was Your Career Helped by Excel?
Last week someone sent me a lovely email, describing a young woman’s career beginnings. They said I could share the story with you, but asked to remain anonymous.
Maybe your career began in a similar way.
- Did you start out with an Excel career in mind?
- Did you struggle at first, and did Excel help you move forward?
- Did you help someone else get ahead, by giving them a few Excel pointers?
The Story
Here’s the story from the email:
My daughter had a very rough first year of work after completing a marketing degree, basically having to act as a receptionist and assistant dogsbody to lots of people.
Then she landed a job at a small firm where she found they were doing things extremely manually. I introduced her to pivot tables, and with a bit of help, she has completely transformed their spreadsheets so they can do in minutes what took them days and weeks, without any errors.
The best part is that her new skills and spreadsheets have, for the first time, given her something she can call her own, and respect from her colleagues. She is fiercely proud of her work, and keen to learn more. What a transformation!
It’s hard to imagine that pivots could be girl power, but here they were.
Go pivots!
Did you know what a dogsbody was? I’d never heard that before, but Wikipedia explained that it’s someone who does grunt work.
It’s great to see that people are getting recognition for their Excel skills, and saving time, and reducing errors in their work.
Excel Resources
If you’re trying to learn more about Excel, but don’t have a free consultant at home, you’ll find lots of free tutorials here on this blog, on my pivot table blog, and on my Contextures website.
And for the latest Excel courses, Excel books and Excel tools, go to the Debra’s Excel Picks page, on my Contextures website
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Sum a Filtered List with AGGREGATE Function
The SUBTOTAL function is great for calculating totals on a filtered list in Excel. Unlike the SUM function, SUBTOTAL ignores the values in rows hidden by the filter, and can even ignore manually hidden rows, so the total includes only the visible cells.
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Quickly Clear Objects from Worksheet
Earlier this week, I copied a list of Excel keyboard shortcuts from the Microsoft website, and pasted it into Excel. Then I noticed that a few objects had come along with the shortcuts list.
Use Slicers to Filter a Table in Excel 2010
Pivot table filtering was improved in Excel 2010, when Slicers were introduced. Instead of using the drop down lists in the pivot table headings, you can click on a Slicer, to quickly filter the pivot table. You couldn’t use Slicers to filter a table in Excel 2010 though.
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Get Mileage from Excel Lookup Table
There is a new sample file on my website, in response to a lookup question that someone asked on my Contextures Facebook page. The sample file shows how to get mileage from Excel lookup table, when you pick two cities.
Calculate Annual Costs and Savings in Excel
This workbook shows how to calculate annual costs and savings in Excel. It’s amazing how all those little expenses can add up over a year.
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Counting Query Tables in Excel
A few years ago, Ron Coderre created his PivotPlay PLUS Add-in that you can download from my Contextures site. This free add-in was designed for Excel 2003, and lets you view and edit the connection strings for pivot tables and query tables that are based on external data queries.
Insert Rows with Excel Fill Handle
If you want to insert a block of cells on a worksheet, what method do you use most often? Do you insert rows with Excel fill handle, or with a command?
Close All Files in Excel 2013
One of the new features in Excel 2013 is that each file opens in a separate window. Having each file in its own window makes it easier to compare files side-by-side, and most of the time I like the separate windows.