You’d love to get that promotion, or perhaps you’re in search of that elusive raise. Maybe you simply want to secure your job in this down economic time. But whatever the reason, you are looking for ways to impress your supervisor.
What about Excel? Most of us, regardless of our job, use spreadsheets in Excel. This program is an extremely powerful business tool; here are some tips to improve your efficiency, which is sure to impress your boss.
- Hiding Information: You may wonder why you may wish to hide specific information in a spreadsheet. Well, suppose the spreadsheet which has all your data about the company also has everyone’s salary. That is private information that you don’t want to reveal at the meeting. Simple hide the column or row by clicking the related number or letter to highlight it, then right-click on that highlighted row or column and select the Hide option in the popup menu. You can then Unhide the row or column in the same manner when the meeting is over.
- Timestamping: Should you wish to attach a date to your spreadsheet, you can use the Timestamp feature. Just hold Ctrl as you press the semicolon key. If you would like the current date and time hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys while pressing the semicolon.
- A Better-Looking Spreadsheet: Give your spreadsheet a fresh look by employing Excel’s Themes option. You will find this in the Excel Ribbon, at the top. Click it, and you’ll be given a huge variety of fonts, and color schemes that you may apply to your spreadsheet. You can also design your own!
- Tracking Trends: The latest version of Excel comes with a feature called Sparklines. By using this feature, you can create small charts that show trends in information. For instance, you could use Sparklines to instantly determine how many software bundles each of your company’s salespeople sold in the first half of 2011.
- Conditional Formatting: With conditional formatting, you can automatically affect the look of spreadsheet cells that meet certain requirements. For instance, a cell showing that product sales rose by more than 100 % in a given month could take on a different shade so that it quickly sticks out.
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