Two big productivity boosters in Excel are the F2 and F4 keys. F2 will put Excel into the edit mode. If you need to change something you’ve already typed into a cell, just press F2 to edit the cell. If you change your mind, press Esc to get out of edit mode. If the cursor […]
About a year ago, I asked this question on the SuperUser site, but I didn’t get an answer that worked. I’ve finally come up with a solution. The following is a very common workflow when writing a report: 1. Make tables and charts in Excel 2. Copy and paste these into Word and write additional […]
Having leading or trailing spaces around text is one of the most common reasons why vlookup fails. The solution to this problem is simple: the trim function. Trim removes spaces from around text. Wrapping the lookup_value and the table_array inside the trim function makes vlookup much more sturdy. Trim operates on one value at a […]
Calculator is a program that comes with every Windows computer. It’s ok for the simplest of calculations, but it has a lot of limitations. For example, it doesn’t keep a history of your calculations and there is no way to keep it floating on top of the screen. SpeedCrunch is a good alternative to Calculator. […]
Many governments and businesses use fiscal years that are different than the calendar year. A fiscal year that runs from April 1 to March 31 of the following year is quite common. In this post, I’ll demonstrate how to create an Excel function that will tell you which fiscal year any date belongs to. Let’s […]
I can’t find where I originally read someone saying, “Those aren’t warts, they’re battle scars.” It might’ve been in the comments section on some software blog. The quote is in reference to how ugly source code often looks, especially code that’s been in use for a very long time. Back in 2000, Joel Spolsky wrote […]
One simple but very handy program that comes with every Windows computer is Notepad. Notepad is an example of a plain text editor. Plain text editors are great for when you need to get rid of formatting from text you’ve copied over from a website. Also, if you need to copy and paste a lot […]
If you use Excel a lot, probably the best thing you can do to become more efficient is to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. Switching back and forth between the keyboard and mouse really slows things down. In the following example, I’m going to show how you can use the arrow keys in combination with […]
A computer algebra system (CAS) is software that can perform symbolic mathematics. There are two main types of math software: programs designed to do numerical calculations and programs that can manipulate symbols. The first group includes programs like MATLAB, GAUSS, GNU Octave, and Stata. The second group includes programs like Mathematica, Maple, and Maxima. A […]
A portable application is a program that can be run directly off of a USB key (this definition isn’t completely accurate though). Portable apps are great if your workplace computer is locked down and you’re blocked from installing software. LiberKey is a system for managing hundreds of portable applications for Windows computers. LiberKey and all […]
