Excel

PivotTables, formulas, charts, conditional formatting, and what to do when Excel won't cooperate.

42 guides in this category.

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How-To Guides

• How to Calculate Percentages in Excel — Work out percentage of a total, percentage change, markup and sales tax in Excel, and stop a correct formula displaying as 0.25 or 2500%.
• How to Create a Drop-Down List in Excel — Create a drop-down list in Excel using Data Validation. Restrict cell inputs to ensure consistent and error-free data entry in spreadsheets.
• How to Create a PivotTable in Excel — Summarize and analyze large datasets in Excel with PivotTables. Learn how to create, format, and refresh interactive reports.
• How to Create a Template Invoice from Excel or Word — Learn how to build a professional, reusable invoice template in Microsoft Word or Excel, and save it so you don't overwrite the original.
• How to Create and Customize Charts in Excel — Create and customize charts in Microsoft Excel to visualize data trends. Form graphs for reports, presentations, and dashboards.
• How to Find and Highlight Duplicates in Excel — Highlight duplicate values in Excel with conditional formatting, flag repeat entries with COUNTIF, count them, filter them, and clear the formatting after.
• How to Fix Circular Reference Warnings in Excel — Excel says a formula refers to its own cell. How to find the looping cell from the status bar, fix the two everyday causes, and when iteration is right.
• How to Fix Common Excel Formula Errors — Formula errors like #REF! Learn how with our step-by-step instructions.
• How to Fix "######" Errors in Excel Cells — Seeing a row of hashtags (######) quickly means Excel cannot fit the content inside the cell.
• How to Fix Excel Crashing or Freezing — If Excel freezes when opening a specific file or crashes randomly, it is usually due to corrupt add-ins or "Hardware Graphics Acceleration".
• How to Fix Excel Not Opening Files or Showing a Blank Workbook — Learn how to fix issues where Microsoft Excel refuses to open a file or only opens a completely blank, grey window with no spreadsheet.
• How to Fix Numbers Stored as Text in Excel — Green triangles, left-aligned numbers and SUM returning 0 mean Excel is holding your numbers as text. Here is how to convert them back for good.
• How to Fix "This Workbook Contains Links to External Sources" in Excel — Learn how to find, update, or safely remove broken external links in Microsoft Excel to stop the annoying startup warning.
• How to Format Data as a Table in Excel — Turn a plain range into an Excel table with Ctrl + T for banded rows, filter buttons, sticky headers, a Total Row, and formulas that grow with your data.
• How to Freeze Panes and Split Views in Excel — Keep column headers and row labels visible while scrolling in Excel. Learn how to Freeze Panes and split worksheet views.
• How to Mail Merge from Excel to Word — Generate personalized letters, labels, or emails in bulk. Follow our step-by-step guide to run a Mail Merge from Excel to Word.
• How to Open a CSV File in Excel Without Breaking It — Stop Excel mangling CSV exports. Import with Data > From Text/CSV to keep leading zeros, long numbers and accented characters intact.
• How to Print an Excel Spreadsheet on One Page — Fit a wide worksheet onto a single printed page using scaling, print areas, margins and page breaks, without shrinking the text past the point of readability.
• How to Protect a Sheet or Workbook in Excel — Secure your Excel spreadsheets. Learn how to lock cells, protect sheets, and password-protect workbooks from accidental changes.
• How to Refresh and Fix a PivotTable When Data Changes — Make a PivotTable pick up new rows, clear stale filter items, repair a broken data source, and stop formatting resetting on every refresh.
• How to Remove Duplicate Rows in Excel — Find and remove duplicate rows in Excel using the built-in Remove Duplicates tool or conditional formatting.
• How to Sort and Filter Data in Excel — Sort data alphabetically or by value and use filters to show only the rows you need in Excel.
• How to Split Text into Columns in Excel — Use Text to Columns to split names, addresses and codes into separate columns without losing leading zeros or overwriting the data sitting beside them.
• How to Stop Excel Changing Numbers into Dates — Stop Excel turning entries like 1-2 into 2-Jan and dropping leading zeros from ZIP codes, and rescue a column it has already converted.
• How to Use AutoFill in Excel — Use Excel AutoFill to quickly fill cells with patterns, sequences, dates, and formulas by dragging the fill handle.
• How to Use Conditional Formatting in Excel — Conditional formatting highlights cells based on rules you define - such as coloring values above a threshold or adding data bars to visualize trends.
• How to Use Data Validation and Input Tips in Excel — Use Excel's Data Validation feature to control what users can enter in a cell - including dropdown lists, number ranges, date ranges, and custom rules.
• How to Use Excel Keyboard Shortcuts — The Excel keyboard shortcuts worth learning, grouped by task — navigating, selecting, entering data, formatting, and formulas, with Mac equivalents.
• How to Use Find and Replace in Office — Find and Replace lets you search for specific text, formatting, or values and replace them across an entire document or spreadsheet.
• How to Use Flash Fill in Excel — Flash Fill automatically fills in values by recognising patterns in your data - for example, extracting first names from full names, reformatting phone...
• How to Use Goal Seek in Excel — Work backwards from the answer you need. How to run Goal Seek in Excel, fill the three boxes, read the result, and know when to reach for Solver.
• How to Use IF and IFS Functions in Excel — IF returns one answer when a test passes and another when it fails. Learn the syntax, the quoting rules, nested IF, IFS, and AND/OR tests.
• How to Use LAMBDA and LET Functions to Clean Up Excel Formulas — Learn how to use Excel's modern LET and LAMBDA functions to simplify massive, complex formulas so they are easier to read and edit.
• How to Use Named Ranges in Excel — Name a range once and every formula that uses it reads like plain English. How to create, use, edit and scope named ranges in Excel.
• How to Use SUMIF and COUNTIF in Excel — Count and total only the rows that match a condition, with the COUNTIF and SUMIF criteria syntax that trips everyone up, plus SUMIFS and COUNTIFS.
• How to Use the Analyze Data Feature in Excel — The Analyze Data feature (formerly called Ideas) in Excel uses artificial intelligence to identify trends, patterns, and insights in your data.
• How to Use VLOOKUP in Excel — VLOOKUP pulls a matching value out of a table. Learn the four arguments, why the last one must be FALSE, and the column-counting trap to avoid.
• How to Use XLOOKUP in Excel — XLOOKUP searches a range for a value and returns a corresponding result from another column or row.
• How to Wrap Text and Merge Cells in Excel — Wrap long text inside a cell, add line breaks with Alt + Enter, and merge cells without breaking sorting, filtering, and your formulas.

Explainers

• Understanding Absolute and Relative Cell References in Excel — The dollar sign is why one formula survives being dragged down a column and another falls apart. Here is what each reference type does and when to use it.
• Understanding Excel Features — A Quick-Reference Guide to What Excel Can Do — Excel is one of the most powerful tools in Microsoft 365, but most users only scratch the surface - typing data into cells and doing basic math.
• Understanding Why Copilot Only Works in Excel for the Web (and How to Fix It) — Why is the Copilot button grayed out in your Excel desktop app but works perfectly in your browser? Learn the three strict rules Excel requires.