Shortcut to Format any Number in Excel

Here's some shortcut to easily convert a number to any format.
First, when you add a number in an excel cell, it defaults to a "general" format - "1234". To quickly change it to a "number" format - 1,234.00 here's what you do:

                      1. Click the cell with the number
                      2. Press Ctl-Shift-1
                      3. Done!

Easy!

Other combination and formatting results are as follows:

                     Ctl-Shift-2: Hour - 12:00AM
                     Ctl-Shift-3: Date -  18-May-03
                     Ctl-Shift-4: Dollar - $1,234.00
                     Ctl-Shift-5: Percent -1234%
                     Ctl-Shift-6: Scientific Notation -1.23E+03

Happy Computing!

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Hiding the Excel 2007 Ribbon Shortcut

Using a netbook and want to save some screen space? Try to hide the "Ribbon". The ribbon is where the menus in excel 2007 are.

To quickly hide and unhide it, just use Ctl-F1. That's it!

Happy computing!

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Wrap Text in a cell

Want to quickly wrap text in a cell? Simple. Use alt-enter to drop the next text. Do as many times as needed. It's that easy!

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Quick Redo in Excel: The Mighty F4

The Mighty F4. One of the most useful shortcuts I've learned is the F4. How is it used? Well, it is basically a keyboard shortcut for redo. Here's how it works, or at least the way I use it.

When you want to do something repetitive but does not warrant a creation of a macro, then use the F4. Example, you want to color different non-contiguous cells to blue. You could click the cell, format it to blue, click another cell, format it again and so on. Another way,quicker in my own opinion is to click a cell, format it, then click all other cells and press F4. This will definitely save some time.

This is specially true for tasks that require a lot of "mouse work" or clicks. You only do the "dirty work" once and then just F4 all the rest.

Try it out, you may like it! Hope it helps you well and make your work a little easier and quicker!

Happy computing!

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Excel Calendar Templates for Free!

It's a new year and of course a new calendar always comes in handy.

Enter vertex.com, I've seen this site a few years back trying to find some excel calendar templates and I've never looked at another site again! It has all sorts of useful templates and most are free such as this template.

Almost all types of calendars are available. Check the site and you'll almost always find what you need or look for.

Head to this link for the calendars (and other very useful templates). Kudos to the creator of this site!

http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/excel-calendar-template.html

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Fractions in Excel?

Yes, you read it right. If you use excel 2007, you can format decimals to fractions!


more on this on the microsoft site.


http://www.microsoft.com/Education/DisplayFractions.aspx

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Generate Random Numbers

There are two ways to generate random numbers in excel automatically:

1. Use the rand() function. It generates a random number from 0.1 to 0.9. To refresh just use F9. You can use "=round(rand()*100)" to generate whole numbers from 1 to 100. Or if you want, you can also use any other number as the multiplier.
2. Easier still, you can use "=RandBetween(a,b)". Where "a" and "b" are the least and max numbers that you want to generate. For example, if you want to generate a random number from 1 to 100. You will have to use =randbetween(1,100).
   
   Hope this helps!
   
   Happy computing!

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