How to Get the Most Out of Your Excel Spreadsheets

I, for one, enjoy using the Excel software package. It offers great potential to any individual or business organization seeking a tool for numerical purposes of some description. However, if you are unaware of Excel's best features, you will not be able to fully exploit the package.

Formatting

Let us first take a look at rudimentary Excel formatting. Top-quality formatting will enable you to create well-presented and professional-looking sheets. An empty sheet will be the first thing you see, although cell lines are visible on the screen they will not come out in print. In short, borders and other formatting need to be carried out to make a really visually appealing and effective spreadsheet.

This can be done simply by right-clicking the cells you wish to format and then selecting Format Cells from the drop-down menu. When you do so, the formatting screen will enable you to select appropriate cell borders, colors, alignment, and number categories. Adding color to cells will make the sheet more colorful. Clip art can also be a nice touch to any sheet, and you might want to include some relevant pictures.

Conditional formatting is another useful formatting feature. It enables you to change the formatting of the selected cells using numerical conditions such as greater than, less than, between, etc. If the numerical value makes the condition true, then the formatting will change as instructed. Color, border, and fonts can be changed by doing this. For example, you might want the cell color to change to red if the value becomes negative (in accountancy sheets).

Visual Output

Graphs and charts are obviously a strong feature of Excel. With great variety and color, they can enhance spreadsheets considerably. Data within the sheet can be compared and contrasted. And of course, they will aid the sheet's graphics. They can be on separate sheets or within spreadsheets and will display the numbers contained within the sheet in a more graphical form.

The comment feature is easy to use and can greatly assist you. Quite simply, all this is, is a means of adding an appropriate explanation to any cell within the sheet. It involves selecting the cell, clicking insert, and then typing comments. From there, all you have to do is add the comment content, and it will appear any time you move the cursor over the relevant cell. This can be a great reminder as to what the cells, rows, and columns are actually displaying in terms of calculations, results, etc.

Numerical Handling

Excel has hundreds of functions. Obviously, they are a well-known part of spreadsheets, but some of the statistical and financial functions can be very effectively used within financial or accountancy sheets, alongside the basic mathematical sums. For example, asset depreciation, return rates, and interest rate calculations can be made.

Goal-seek, Scenarios, and Solver can be used to make financial forecasts. Using these, Excel can make budget amendments for you and provide a forecasting tool. Equally, these forecasts can be made and generated into a report format, like Pivot tables. They provide a strong tool.

Extras

With Macros and a VB editor available, menu systems and data-input forms can be created and built into the spreadsheets to produce detailed application files. Of course, some coding skills might be required to do this, and it is more suitable for advanced users.

Alternatively, Excel templates are available for invoicing, purchase orders, and expense statements. If appropriate templates are available, then you can use these to produce the sheets you wish. One look at the templates available undoubtedly demonstrates what the package can produce when fully used.

Clearly, making use of the features mentioned will allow for far more than just simple one-sheet spreadsheets with a few calculations. Using Excel fully can create detailed, visually appealing application files with a range of linked sheets, functions, and graphical output. Undoubtedly, such sheets will be of greater value to you.