Ted's Spreadsheets Blog October 2006 Archive

When most people use Excel’s IF function, they set it up to return a number or perform a calculation. While this is certainly a good use for the IF ... Read More

It’s a good practice to add the current date to a spreadsheet when it is created or updated. You can just type the date into a cell on the ... Read More

If you ever need a chart in a hurry, or you just want to check on certain trends in your data, you can quickly create one in Excel with a ... Read More

Whenever I teach Microsoft Excel, there are always several people who are overwhelmed by the number of tasks involved in producing a complete spreadsheet, such as entering data, creating ... Read More

Among the templates offered free of charge by Microsoft is one for creating simple Excel flow charts. The template works in all versions of Excel from Excel 97 on. A flow ... Read More

This fall I had an unusual event happen with one of my classes – I kept getting more and more students every day. New students kept showing up until ... Read More

Creating formulas in Microsoft Excel is not difficult. It's really just a matter of combining the cell references of your data with the correct mathematical operator. Of course, knowing ... Read More

The IF function is one of Excel’s most useful and most used functions. What it does, basically, is test to see whether a certain condition is true or false. If ... Read More

When I need to do some quick calculations, it has reached the point where, rather than grab a calculator, I’ll open an Excel spreadsheet and type in a formula to ... Read More

Creating charts, or graphs, as we call them in math class, is an important part in completing a worksheet if you are sharing your information with others. A chart ... Read More

As a teacher I have to manage a great deal of information about the courses I teach, my students, their marks, attendance, and so on. Because of its data management ... Read More

It’s a rare occasion when you create a spreadsheet that doesn’t need a change of layout before you are finished. You start entering your data with an idea of ... Read More

I’ve heard from more than one person that their initial reaction the first time they open a spreadsheet program is one of bewilderment. As one person said, “There were ... Read More