Excel 2013 For Dummies

For those times when you need to select a subset of a data table in Excel 2013 as the range to be charted (as opposed to selecting a single cell within a data table), you can use the new Quick Analysis tool to create your chart. Just follow these steps:Click the Quick Analysis tool that appears right below the lower-right corner of the current cell selection.

You can tell right away that an Excel 2013 formula has gone haywire because instead of a nice calculated value, you get a strange, incomprehensible message. This weirdness is, in the parlance of Excel 2013 spreadsheets, an error value. Its purpose is to let you know that some element — either in the formula itself or in a cell referred to by the formula — is preventing Excel from returning the anticipated calculated value.

To begin to work on a new Excel 2013 spreadsheet, you simply start entering information in the first sheet of the Book1 workbook window. Here are a few simple guidelines (a kind of data-entry etiquette) to keep in mind when you create an Excel spreadsheet in Sheet1 of a new workbook: Whenever you can, organize your information in tables of data that use adjacent (neighboring) columns and rows.

At first glance, you might have trouble making sense of the many menus, tabs, columns, and rows of the Excel 2013 user interface. However, this Cheat Sheet will help you navigate your way by showing you keystrokes for moving the cell cursor to a new cell, simple rules of data-entry etiquette, and common causes of some formula error values.

Using Excel 2013 to create a new data list in a worksheet is much like creating a worksheet table except that it has only column headings and no row headings. To set up a new data list, follow these steps:Click the blank cell where you want to start the new data list and then enter the column headings (technically known as field names in database parlance).

Instead of entering the records of a data list directly in the table, you can use Excel 2013’s data form to make the entries. The only problem is that the command to display the form in a worksheet with a data list is not part of the Ribbon commands. You can access the data form only by adding its command button to the Quick Access toolbar or a custom Ribbon tab.

Hyperlinks automate Excel 2013 worksheets by making the opening of other Office documents and Excel workbooks and worksheets just a mouse click away. It doesn’t matter whether these documents are located on your hard drive, a server on your LAN (Local Area Network), or web pages on the Internet or a company’s intranet.

In addition to online and local imported from graphics files, with Excel 2013 you can insert preset graphic shapes in your chart or worksheet by selecting their thumbnails on the Shapes drop-down gallery on the Insert tab of the Ribbon. When you open the Shapes gallery by clicking the Shapes button in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab of the Ribbon, you see that it’s divided into nine sections: Recently Used Shapes, Lines, Rectangles, Basic Shapes, Block Arrows, Equation Shapes, Flowchart, Stars and Banners, and Callouts.

Excel 2013 allows you to add records to data lists by using the data form. The first time you click the custom Form button you added to the Quick Access toolbar, Excel analyzes the row of field names and entries for the first record and creates a data form. This data form lists the field names down the left side of the form with the entries for the first record in the appropriate text boxes next to them.

Each blank workbook that you open contains a single worksheet given the prosaic name, Sheet1. To add more sheets to your workbook in Excel 2013, you simply click the New Sheet button on the Status bar (the one with plus sign in a circle). Each worksheet you add with the New Sheet command button is assigned a generic Sheet name with the next available number appended to it, so if you click this button twice in a new workbook containing Sheet1, Excel adds Sheet2 and Sheet3.

The good news is that Excel 2013 still supports the Text to Speech feature introduced in Excel 2003. This feature enables your computer to read aloud any series of cell entries in the worksheet. By using Text to Speech, you can check your printed source while the computer reads aloud the values and labels that you’ve actually entered — a great way to catch errors that may otherwise escape unnoticed.

You can add text comments to particular cells in an Excel 2013 worksheet. Comments act kind of like electronic pop-up versions of sticky notes. For example, you can add a comment to yourself to verify a particular figure before printing the worksheet or to remind yourself that a particular value is only an estimate.

When creating a text box in Excel 2013, you may want to add an arrow to point directly to the object or part of the chart you’re referencing. To add an arrow, follow these steps: Click the text box to which you want to attach the arrow in the chart or worksheet. Sizing handles appear around the text box and the Format tab under the Drawing Tools contextual tab is added to the Ribbon.

To add a text box in Excel 2013 like the one shown to the chart when a chart is selected, select the Format tab under the Chart Tools contextual tab. Then, click the Insert Shapes drop-down button to open its palette where you select the Text Box button. To insert a text box in a worksheet when a chart or some other type of graphic isn’t selected, you can open the Insert tab on the Ribbon and then click the Text Box option on the Text button’s drop-down palette.

Excel 2013 offers you several options for adjusting the margins when necessary. The Normal margin settings that Excel applies to a new report uses standard top, bottom, left, and right margins of 3/4 inch with just over a 1/4 inch separating the header and footer from the top and bottom margin, respectively. In addition to the Normal margin settings, the program enables you to select two other standard margins from the Margins button’s drop-down menu: Wide margins with 1-inch top, bottom, left, and right margins and 1/2 inch separating the header and footer from the top and bottom margin, respectively Narrow margins with a top and bottom margin of 3/4 inch and a left and right margin of 1/4 inch with 0.

In Excel 2013, you can assign colors to the different worksheet tabs. This feature enables you to color-code different worksheets. For example, you could assign red to the tabs of those worksheets that need immediate checking and blue to the tabs of those sheets that you’ve already checked. To assign a color to a worksheet tab, right-click the tab and highlight Tab Color on its shortcut menu to open a submenu containing the Tab Color pop-up palette.

You can assign a macro to a custom tab on the Ribbon or a custom button on the Quick Access toolbar in Excel 2013 and then run it by clicking that custom button. To assign a macro to a custom group on a custom Ribbon tab, you follow these steps: Choose File→Options and then click the Customize Ribbon tab in the Excel Options dialog box (or press Alt+FTC).

When you click the Quick Print button, Excel 2013 routes the print job to the Windows print queue, which acts like a middleman and sends the job to the printer. If you want to cancel the print job after Excel finishes shipping it to the print queue, you must:Right click the printer icon in the Notification area at the far right of the Windows taskbar to open its shortcut menu.

All new formulas you create in Excel 2013 naturally contain relative cell references unless you make them absolute. Because most copies you make of formulas require adjustments of their cell references, you rarely have to give this arrangement a second thought. Then, every once in a while, you come across an exception that calls for limiting when and how cell references are adjusted in copies.

Sometimes, you may find that you need to change the order in which the sheets appear in the Excel 2013 workbook. Excel makes this possible by letting you drag the tab of the sheet you want to arrange in the workbook to the place where you want to insert it. While you drag the tab, the mouse or touch pointer changes to a sheet icon with an arrowhead on it, and the program marks your progress among the sheet tabs.

Excel 2013 automatically keeps a running list of the last 25 files you opened in the Recent Workbooks list on the Open screen when the Recent Workbooks option is selected under Places. If you want, you can have Excel display more or fewer files in this list. To change the number of recently opened files that appear, follow these simple steps: Choose File→Options→Advanced or press Alt+FTA to open the Advanced tab of the Excel Options dialog box.

In Excel 2013, you can split a single workbook into worksheet windows and then arrange the windows so that you can view different parts of each worksheet on the screen. To open the worksheets that you want to compare in different windows, you simply insert new workbook windows and then select the worksheet that you want to display in the new window.

You can use the View Side by Side command button on the Ribbon’s View tab in Excel 2013 to easily do a side-by-side comparison of any two worksheet windows that you have open. This button is the one with the picture of two sheets side by side like tiny tablets of the Ten Commandments When you click this button (or press Alt+WB after opening two windows), Excel automatically tiles them horizontally (as though you had selected the Horizontal option in the Arrange Windows dialog box).

In really large Excel 2013 workbooks that contain many completed worksheets, you may want to switch to manual recalculation so that you can control when the formulas in the worksheet are calculated. You need this kind of control when you find that Excel’s recalculation of formulas each time you enter or change information in cells has slowed the program’s response to a crawl.

In case you haven’t noticed, graphic objects in Excel 2013 float on top of the cells of the worksheet and may need some controlling. Most of the objects are opaque, meaning that they hide information in the cells beneath. If you move one opaque graphic so that it overlaps part of another, the one on top hides the one below, just as putting one sheet of paper partially on top of another hides some of the information on the one below.

Excel 2013 makes it easy to copy custom cell styles that you’ve saved as part of one workbook into the workbook you’re currently working on. To copy custom styles from one workbook to another, follow these steps:Open the workbook that needs the custom styles added to it from another existing workbook.This can be a brand new workbook or one that you’ve opened for editing.

What if you want to copy a cell range in Excel 2013? Suppose that you need to start a new table in rows farther down the worksheet, and you want to copy the cell range with the formatted title and column headings for the new table. To copy the formatted title range in the sample worksheet, follow these steps: Select the cell range.

To the right of the Recommended Charts button in the Charts group of the Ribbon’s Insert tab in Excel 2013, you find particular command buttons with drop-down galleries for creating the following types and styles of charts: Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/shironosov Insert Column Chart to preview your data as a 2-D or 3-D vertical column chart Insert Bar Chart to preview your data as a 2-D or 3-D horizontal bar chart Insert Stock, Surface or Radar Chart to preview your data as a 2-D stock chart (using typical stock symbols), 2-D or 3-D surface chart, or 3-D radar chart Insert Line Chart to preview your data as a 2-D or 3-D line chart Insert Area Chart to preview your data as a 2-D or 3-D area chart Insert Combo Chart to preview your data as a 2-D combo clustered column and line chart or clustered column and stacked area chart Insert Pie or Doughnut Chart to preview your data as a 2-D or 3-D pie chart or 2-D doughnut chart Insert Scatter (X,Y) or Bubble Chart to preview your data as a 2-D scatter (X,Y) or bubble chart When using the galleries attached to these chart command buttons on the Insert tab to preview your data as a particular chart style, you can embed the chart in your worksheet by simply clicking its chart icon.

For those times when you need to select a subset of a data table as the range to be charted in Excel 2013 (as opposed to selecting a single cell within a data table), you can use the new Quick Analysis tool to create your chart. Just follow these steps:Click the Quick Analysis tool that appears right below the lower-right corner of the current cell selection.

Certain formulas in Excel 2013 use constant values, such as an 8.25% tax rate or a 10% discount rate. If you don’t want to have to enter these constants into a cell of the worksheet in order to use the formulas, you create range names that hold their values and then use their range names in the formulas you create.

When creating a one-variable data table in Excel 2013, you designate one cell in the worksheet that serves either as the Row Input Cell (if you’ve entered the series of possible values across columns of a single row) or as the Column Input Cell (if you’ve entered the series of possible values down the rows of a single column).

After creating a pivot table in Excel 2013, you can create a pivot chart to display its summary values graphically in two simple steps. Follow the steps below to take your pivot table to the next step: Click the PivotChart command button in the Tools group on the Analyze tab under the PivotTable Tools contextual tab to open the Insert Chart dialog box.

Excel 2013 makes creating a new pivot table a snap with its new Quick Analysis tool. To preview various types of pivot tables that Excel can create for you on the spot using the entries in a data table or list that you have open in an Excel worksheet, simply follow these steps:Select the data in your table or list as a cell range in the worksheet.

Excel 2013 offers you various option, including the fascinating option of creating a summary worksheet that recaps or totals the values stored in a bunch of other worksheets in the workbook. The best way to show you how to create a summary worksheet is to walk you through the procedure of making one (entitled Total Projected Income) for the MGE – 2014 Projected Income workbook.

To create a two-variable data table in Excel 2013, you enter two ranges of possible input values for the same formula in the Data Table dialog box: a range of values for the Row Input Cell across the first row of the table and a range of values for the Column Input Cell down the first column of the table. You then enter the formula (or a copy of it) in the cell located at the intersection of this row and column of input values.

The Chart Elements button (with the plus sign icon) that appears when your chart is selected in Excel 2013 contains a list of the major chart elements that you can add to your chart. To add an element to your chart, click the Chart Elements button to display an alphabetical list of all the elements, Axes through Trendline.

In Excel 2013, you can use the command buttons on the Design tab of the Chart Tools contextual tab to make all kinds of changes to your new chart. The Design tab contains the following groups of buttons to use: Chart Layouts: Click the Add Chart Element button to modify particular elements in the chart such as the titles, data labels, legend, and so on.

To ease your transition to Excel 2013 from Excel 2003, you can customize the Quick Access Toolbar so that it contains every button from the Standard and Formatting toolbar in Excel 2003 with the exception of the Permission, Drawing, Zoom, and Help buttons. The Permission button is so esoteric and seldom used that you shouldn't bother to add it.

Instead of using drag and drop or AutoFill in Excel 2013, you can use the old standby Cut, Copy, and Paste commands to move or copy information in a worksheet. These commands use the Office Clipboard as a kind of electronic halfway house where the information you cut or copy remains until you decide to paste it somewhere.

There may come a time when you will need to delete a worksheet from a workbook in Excel 2013. For some of you, the single worksheet automatically put into each new workbook that you start is as much as you would ever, ever need (or want) to use. For others of you, a measly, single blank worksheet might seldom, if ever, be sufficient for the type of spreadsheets you create.

Excel 2013 makes it easy to insert online graphic images into your worksheet. The new Insert Pictures dialog box enables you to search Office.com for clip art images to insert as well as to use Microsoft’s Bing search engine to search the entire web for images to use. If that’s not enough, you can also download images that you’ve saved in the cloud on your Windows Live SkyDrive.

The first editing technique you need to learn in Excel 2013 is drag and drop. Drag and drop is primarily a technique for moving cell entries around a worksheet, you can adapt it to copy a cell selection, as well.Select a cell range.Choose the cells you would like to drag and drop. Position the mouse pointer on one edge of the extended cell cursor that now surrounds the entire cell range.

To e-mail a copy of a workbook you have open in Excel 2013 to a client or co-worker, choose File→Share→ Email (Alt+FDE). When you do this, a Send Using E-Mail panel appears with the following five options: Send as Attachment to create a new e-mail message using your default e-mail program with a copy of the workbook file as its attachment file.

To edit the contents of a comment in Excel 2013, select it by clicking the Next or Previous command button in the Comments group of the Review tab and then click the Edit Comment button or right-click the cell with the comment and select Edit Comment from the cell’s shortcut menu. You can also do this by selecting the cell with the comment and then pressing Shift+F2.

Microsoft offers several Office Web Apps for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as part of its Windows Live services that it provides along with your SkyDrive storage in the cloud. You can use the Excel Web App to edit worksheets saved on your SkyDrive online right within your web browser. This comes in handy for occasions when you need to make last-minute edits to an Excel worksheet but don’t have access to a device on which Excel is installed.

Each time you click a sheet tab, you select that worksheet and make it active, enabling you to edit anything in Excel 2013. You may encounter times, however, when you want to select bunches of worksheets so that you can make the same editing changes to all of them simultaneously. When you select multiple worksheets, any editing change that you make to the current worksheet — such as entering information in cells or deleting stuff from them — affects the same cells in all the selected sheets in exactly the same way.

After the database is under way and you’re caught up with entering records in Excel 2013, you can start using the data form to edit and perform routine maintenance on the database. For example, you can use the data form to locate a record you want to change and then make the edits to the particular fields. You can also use the data form to find a specific record you want to remove and then delete it from the database.

When Excel 2013 first adds titles to a new chart, it gives them generic names, such as Chart Title and Axis Title. To edit or format these generic titles with the actual chart titles, click the title in the chart or click the name of the title on the Chart Elements drop-down list. Excel lets you know that a particular chart title is selected by placing selection handles around its perimeter.

Excel 2013 gives the option of editing and formatting inserted pictures. When you first insert an image into the worksheet, it’s selected automatically, indicated by the sizing handles around its perimeter and its rotation handle at the top. To deselect the clip art image and set it in the worksheet, click anywhere in the worksheet outside of the image.

Cell names are a great way to make out the purpose of your formulas in Excel 2013. For example, suppose that you have a simple formula in cell K3 that calculates the total due to you by multiplying the hours you work for a client (in cell I3) by the client’s hourly rate (in cell J3). Normally, you would enter this formula in cell K3 as =I3*J3 However, if you assign the name Hours to cell I3 and the name Rate to cell J3, in cell K3 you could enter the formula =Hours*Rate The formula =Hours*Rate is much easier to understand than =I3*J3.

In Excel 2013, the filter buttons on the column and row fields attached to their labels enable you to filter out entries for particular groups and, in some cases, individual entries in the data source. To filter the summary data in the columns or rows of a pivot table, click the column or row field’s filter button and click the check box at the top of the drop-down list to clear check marks.

The time may come when you will need to filter your pivot charts in Excel 2013. When you graph the data in a pivot table using a typical chart type, such as column, bar, or line, that uses both an x- and y-axis. The Row labels in the pivot table appear along the x- axis at the bottom of the chart and the Column labels in the pivot table become the data series that are delineated in the chart’s legend.

Slicers in Excel 2013 make it a snap to filter the contents of your pivot table on more than one field. (They even allow you to connect with fields of other pivot tables that you’ve created in the workbook.) To add slicers to your pivot table, you follow just two steps: Click one of the cells in your pivot table to select it and then click the Insert Slicer option on the Insert Slicer button located in the Sort & Filter group of the PivotTable Options contextual tab.

Excel 2013 introduces a new way to filter your data with its timeline feature. You can think of timelines as slicers designed specifically for date fields that enable you to filter data out of your pivot table that doesn’t fall within a particular period, thereby allowing you to see timing of trends in your data.

In Excel 2013, perhaps the most important filter buttons in a pivot table are the ones added to the field(s) designated as the pivot table FILTERS. By selecting a particular option on the drop-down lists attached to one of these filter buttons, only the summary data for that subset you select displays in the pivot table.

In a large data list, trying to find a particular record by moving from record to record in Excel 2013 — or even moving ten records at a time with the scroll bar — can take all day. Rather than waste time trying to manually search for a record, you can use the Criteria button in the data form to look it up. When you click the Criteria button, Excel clears all the field entries in the data form (and replaces the record number with the word Criteria) so that you can enter the criteria to search for in the blank text boxes.

Finding the Excel 2013 equivalents for the buttons on the Formatting toolbar in earlier versions of Excel couldn't be easier: Every one of the buttons on the Formatting toolbar is displayed prominently on the Home tab of the Ribbon. They're all easy to identify because they use the same icons as before and are located in the Font, Alignment, or Number group on the Home tab.

Excel 2013 makes formatting a new pivot table you’ve added to a worksheet as quick and easy as formatting any other table of data or list of data. All you need to do is click a cell of the pivot table to add the PivotTable Tools contextual tab to the Ribbon and then click its Design tab to display its command buttons.

When charting a bunch of values, Excel 2013 isn’t too careful how it formats the values that appear on the y-axis. If you’re not happy with the way the values appear on either the x-axis or y-axis, you can easily change the formatting as follows:Click the x-axis or y-axis directly in the chart and then click Horizontal Axis or Vertical Axis on its drop-down list.

Panes are great for viewing different parts of the same worksheet that normally can’t be seen together in Excel 2013. You can also use panes to freeze headings in the top rows and first columns so that the headings stay in view at all times, no matter how you scroll through the worksheet. Frozen headings are especially helpful when you work with a table that contains information that extends beyond the rows and columns shown onscreen.

Clip art is the name given to the ready-made illustrations offered by Microsoft for use in its various Microsoft Office programs, including Excel 2013. Clip art drawings are now so numerous that the images cover almost every classification of image that you can think of. To locate the clip(s) you want to insert into the current worksheet in the Insert Pictures dialog box, in the Office.

In addition to downloading clip art from the Microsoft Office website for use in Excel 2013, you can also download pictures from the web using the Bing search engine. To download an image with Bing, open the Insert Pictures dialog box (Alt+NF), then click in the Search Bing text box where you type the keyword for the types of images you want to locate.

Apps for Office are small programs that run inside various Microsoft Office 2013 programs, including Excel 2013, to extend their functionality. There are apps to help you learn about Excel’s features, look up words in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and even enter dates into your spreadsheet by selecting them on a calendar.

Excel 2013 add-in programs are small modules that extend the program’s power by giving you access to a wide array of features and calculating functions not otherwise offered in the program. There are three types of add-ins: Built-in add-ins available when you install Excel 2013 Add-ins that you can download Add-ins developed by third-party vendors for Excel 2013 that often must be purchased When you first install Excel 2013, the built-in add-in programs included with Excel are fully loaded and ready to use.

Sometimes, you’ll need to manually create a pivot table because none of the pivot tables that Excel 2013 suggests when creating a new table with the Quick Analysis tool or the Recommended PivotTables command button fit the type of data summary you have in mind. In such cases, you can either select the suggested pivot table whose layout is closest to what you have in mind, or you can choose to create the pivot table from scratch (a process that isn’t all that difficult or time consuming).

Excel 2013 makes it as easy to modify pivot table fields from the original data source display in the table as it did adding them when the table was created. Additionally, you can instantly restructure the pivot table by dragging its existing fields to new positions on the table. Add the ability to select a new summary function using any of Excel’s basic Statistical functions, and you have yourself the very model of a flexible data table!

By default, Excel 2013 uses the good old SUM function to create subtotals and grand totals for the numeric field(s) that you assign as the Data Items in the pivot table. Some pivot tables, however, require the use of another summary function, such as AVERAGE or COUNT. To change the summary function that Excel uses, click the Sum Of field label that’s located at the cell intersection of the first column field and row field in a pivot table.

Although Excel 2013 automatically embeds all new charts on the same worksheet as the data they graph, you may find it easier to customize and work with it if you move the chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook. To move an embedded chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook, follow these steps:Select the chart and then click the Move Chart button on the Design tab under the Chart Tools contextual tab to open the Move Chart dialog box.

Although Excel 2013 automatically creates all new pivot charts on the same worksheet as the pivot table, you may find it easier to customize and work with it if you move the chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook. To move a new pivot chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook, you follow these steps:Click the Analyze tab under the PivotChart Tools contextual tab to bring its tools to the Ribbon.

You may find it easier to customize and work with your pivot table in Excel 2013 if you move the chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook, even though Excel automatically creates all new pivot charts on the same worksheet as the pivot table. To move a new pivot chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook, you follow these steps:Click the Analyze tab under the PivotChart Tools contextual tab to bring its tools to the Ribbon.

Excel 2013 allows you to move through the records you have created in the data form. You can use the scroll bar to the right of the list of field names or various keystrokes to move through the records in the database until you find the one you want to edit or delete. To move to the data form for the next record in the data list: Press ↓, press Enter, or click the down scroll arrow at the bottom of the scroll bar.

In some situations, you need to move a particular worksheet or copy it from one workbook to another in Excel 2013. To move or copy worksheets between workbooks, follow these steps: Open both the workbook with the worksheet(s) that you want to move or copy and the workbook that is to contain the moved or copied worksheet(s).

Right after you create a new embedded chart in a worksheet in Excel 2013, you can easily move or resize the chart because the chart is still selected. You can always tell when an embedded chart is selected because the chart is outlined with a thin double-line and you see sizing handles — those squares at the four corners and midpoints of the outline that appears around the perimeter.

By assigning descriptive names to cells and cell ranges in Excel 2013, you can go a long way toward keeping on top of the location of important information in a worksheet. Rather than try to associate random cell coordinates with specific information, you just have to remember a name. You can also use range names to designate the cell selection that you want to print or use in other Office 2013 programs, such as Microsoft Word or Access.

After you select a folder and drive in the Excel 2013 Open screen or press the Ctrl+F12 shortcut, Excel displays an Open dialog box. The Open dialog box is divided: the Navigation pane on the left, where you can select a new folder to open, and the main pane on the right showing the icons for the subfolders in the current folder, and the documents that Excel can open.

When the Open screen is first displayed in the Excel 2013 Backstage, the Recent Workbooks option in the Places pane on the left is selected. If the file you want to open isn’t shown in this list in the right-hand pane, you need to select one of the other Places options: Windows Live’s SkyDrive to open a workbook file that’s saved in the cloud in one of your folders on your Windows Live SkyDrive.

To make a web page query in Excel 2013, you click the From web command button on the Data tab of the Ribbon or press Alt+AFW. Excel then opens the New web Query dialog box containing the Home page for your computer’s default web browser (Internet Explorer 10 in most cases). To select the web page containing the data you want to import into Excel, you can: Type the URL web address in the Address text box at the top of the Home page in the New web Query dialog box.

As pivot implies, the fun of pivot tables in Excel 2013 is being able to restructure the table simply by rotating the column and row fields. This makes it easier to organize your information. For example, suppose that after making the Dept field the column field and the Location field the row field in a pivot table, you decide you want to see what the table looks like with the Location field as the column field and the Dept field as the row field.

If selecting gazillions of preset shapes available from the Shapes gallery in Excel 2013 doesn’t provide enough variety for jazzing up your worksheet, you may want to try adding some fancy text using the WordArt gallery, opened by clicking the WordArt command button in the Text group of the Insert tab. You can add this type of “graphic” text to your worksheet by following these steps:Click the WordArt button in the Text group on the Insert tab or simply press Alt+NW.

If the device running Excel 2013 also has Microsoft’s Lync 2013 online communication software installed, you can present your worksheets to the other attendees as part of any online meeting that you organize. To do this, first open the workbook you want to present at the online meeting in Excel 2013 before you select the Present Online option in the program’s Share screen in the Backstage view (Alt+FHP).

Sometimes, you may want to print only a particular chart embedded in the worksheet of Excel 2013 (independent of the worksheet data it represents or any of the other stuff you’ve added). To do this, open the Selection task pane and make sure that any hidden charts are displayed in the worksheet by putting the eye icons back in their check boxes.

To save paper and your sanity, print your worksheet directly from the Print screen in Excel 2013’s Backstage view by clicking File→Print (or simply pressing Ctrl+P or Ctrl+F2). The Print screen shows you at-a-glance your current print settings along with a preview of the first page of the printout. You can also add a Print Preview and Print command button to the Quick Access toolbar that opens this Print screen in the Backstage view.

After you more or less finalize an Excel 2013 worksheet by checking out its formulas and proofing its text, you often want to guard against any unplanned changes by protecting the document. Each cell in the worksheet can be locked or unlocked. By default, Excel locks all the cells in a worksheet so that, when you follow these steps, Excel locks the whole thing up tighter than a drum:Click the Protect Sheet command button in the Changes group on the Review tab on Ribbon or press Alt+RPS.

Excel 2013 makes it easy to import data into a worksheet from other database tables created with stand-alone database management systems (such as Microsoft Access), a process known as making an external data query. To make an external data query to an Access database table, you click the From Access command button on the Ribbon’s Data tab or press Alt+AFA.

Excel 2013 enables you to add an optional Developer tab to the Ribbon that contains its own Record Macro command button (among other command buttons that are very useful when doing more advanced work with macros). To add the Developer tab to the Excel 2013 Ribbon, follow these two steps: Choose File→Options or press Alt+FT to open the Excel Options dialog box.

You can easily rename a worksheet tab in Excel 2013 to whatever helps you remember what you put on the worksheet. The sheet names that Excel comes up with for the tabs in a workbook (Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3) are, to put it mildly, not very original — and are certainly not descriptive of their function in life! To rename a worksheet tab, just follow these steps: Double-click the sheet tab or right-click the sheet tab and then click Rename on its shortcut menu.

Sometimes you may find yourself on a device that doesn’t run a web browser that supports the Excel Web App. You can still review workbooks for later use. For example, when you use the Safari web browser on your iPhone 4 (unlike the Safari that runs on MacBook Air laptop and iPad tablet), the browser opens workbook files with the Excel Mobile Viewer instead of the Excel Web App.

After you record a macro in Excel 2013, you can run it by clicking the View Macros option on the Macros button’s drop-down menu on the View tab, the Macros button on the Developer tab of the Ribbon, or by pressing Alt+F8 to open the Macro dialog box. As you can see, Excel lists the names of all the macros in the current workbook and in your Personal Macro Workbook (provided you’ve created one) in the Macro Name list box.

If you have access to Skype IM (Instant Message) or have Microsoft’s Lync software installed on the device running Excel 2013, you can share a workbook saved on your SkyDrive by sending a link to a co-worker or client via instant messaging. To do this, simply open the workbook saved on your SkyDrive in Excel 2013 and then select the Send by Instant Message option on the Share screen in the Excel Backstage view (Alt+FHIM).

Excel 2013 makes it easy to share your spreadsheets with trusted clients and co-workers. You can use the options on the Share screen in Backstage view to e-mail worksheets or send them by Instant Message to others who have access to Excel. If you have Microsoft’s Lync online meeting software installed on your device, you can present the worksheet to the other attendees as part of a Lync meeting.

You need to use multiple fields in sorting in Excel 2013 when the first field you use contains duplicate values and you want a say in how the records with duplicates are arranged. (If you don’t specify another field to sort on, Excel just puts the records in the order in which you entered them.) The best and most common example of when you need more than one field is when sorting a large database alphabetically by last name.

Every data list you put together in Excel 2013 will have some kind of preferred order for maintaining the records. You can sort on a single or multiple fields. Depending on the list, you may want to see the records in alphabetical order by last name. In the case of a client data table, you may want to see the records arranged alphabetically by company name.

You’ll be relieved to know that Excel 2013 has a built-in spell checker that can catch and remove all those embarrassing little spelling errors. With this in mind, you no longer have any excuse for putting out worksheets with typos in the titles or headings. To check the spelling in a worksheet, you have the following options: Click the Spelling command button on the Ribbon’s Review tab Press Alt+RS Press F7 Any way you do it, Excel begins checking the spelling of all text entries in the worksheet.

Although zooming on the worksheet can help you get your bearings in Excel 2013, it can’t split the worksheet into two separate windows so that you can compare their data on the screen. To manage this kind of trick, split the Worksheet area into separate panes and then scroll the worksheet in each pane so that they display the parts you want to compare.

When you have a lot of data to enter into your Excel 2013 spreadsheet, and that data consists of some type of repeatable pattern or sequence, you can save time by using AutoFill. To use AutoFill, you select the cell or cells that already contain an example of what you want to fill and then drag the fill handle.

In addition to filtering a data list to records that contain a particular field entry in Excel 2013, you can create custom AutoFilters that enable you to filter the list to records that meet less-exacting criteria (such as last names starting with the letter M) or ranges of values (such as salaries between $25,000 and $75,000 a year).

If your purpose for finding a cell with a particular entry in Excel 2013 is so that you can change it, you can automate this process by using the Replace tab on the Find and Replace dialog box. If you click Home→Find & Select→Replace or press Ctrl+H or Alt+HFDR, Excel opens the Find and Replace dialog box with the Replace tab (rather than the Find tab) selected.

Excel 2013 contains a number filter option called Top 10. You can use this option on a number field to show only a certain number of records (like the ones with the ten highest or lowest values in that field or those in the ten highest or lowest percent in that field). To use the Top 10 option to filter a database, follow these steps:Click the Sort & Filter button in the Editing group of the Home tab and then select Filter from the drop-down menu.

Excel 2013 supports the creation of screenshot graphics of objects on your Windows desktop that you can automatically insert into your worksheet. To take a picture of a window open on the desktop or any other object on it, select the Screenshot drop-down button in the Illustrations group of the Ribbon’s Insert tab (Alt+NSC).

Excel 2013 SmartArt is a special type of graphic object that gives you the ability to construct fancy graphical lists and diagrams in your worksheet quickly and easily. SmartArt lists and diagrams come in a wide array of configurations (including a bunch of organizational charts and various process and flow diagrams) that enable you to combine your own text with the predefined graphic shapes.

Excel 2013 lets you spruce up a worksheet with a whole bevy of graphics, including sparklines (new tiny charts that fit right inside worksheet cells), text boxes, clip art drawings supplied by Microsoft, as well as graphic images imported from other sources, such as digital photos, scanned images, and pictures downloaded from the Internet.

Through the use of its themes, Excel 2013 supports a way to format uniformly all the text and graphics you add to a worksheet. You can do this by simply clicking the thumbnail of the new theme you want to use in the Themes drop-down gallery opened by clicking the Themes button on the Page Layout tab of the Ribbon or by pressing Alt+PTH.

When all else fails, you can use Excel 2013’s Find feature to locate specific information in the worksheet. Choose Home→Find & Select→Find or press Ctrl+F, Shift+F5, or even Alt+HFDF to open the Find and Replace dialog box. In the Find What drop-down box of this dialog box, enter the text or values you want to locate and then click the Find Next button or press Enter to start the search.

When you need to do analysis, you use Excel 2013’s Goal Seek feature to find the input values needed to achieve the desired goal. Sometimes when doing what-if analysis, you have a particular outcome in mind, such as a target sales amount or growth percentage. To use the Goal Seek feature located on the What-If Analysis button’s drop-down menu, you need to select the cell containing the formula that will return the result you’re seeking (referred to as the set cell in the Goal Seek dialog box).

The Page Break preview feature in Excel 2013 enables you to spot and fix page break problems in an instant, such as when the program wants to split information across different pages that you know should always be on the same page.Click the Page Break Preview button on the Status bar.The Page Break Preview button is the third one in the cluster to the left of the Zoom slider.

Excel 2013’s Print Titles feature enables you to print particular row and column headings on each page of the report. Print titles are important in multipage reports where the columns and rows of related data spill over to other pages that no longer show the row and column headings on the first page. Don’t confuse print titles with the header of a report.

You can generate a new pivot table in Excel 2013 in a snap with the new Recommended Pivot Tables command button if creating a new pivot table with the Quick Analysis tool in Excel 2013 is too much work for you. To use this method, follow these easy steps: Select a cell in the data list for which you want to create the new pivot table.

Excel 2013’s Scenario Manager option on the What-If Analysis button’s drop-down menu on the Data tab of the Ribbon enables you to create and save sets of different input values that produce different calculated results, named scenarios. Because these scenarios are saved as part of the workbook, you can use their values to play what-if simply by opening the Scenario Manager and having Excel show the scenario in the worksheet.

Occasionally, you may want to insert information in Excel 2013 that is not available in the stock list boxes or in an arrangement that Excel doesn’t offer in the readymade headers and footers. For those times, you need to use the command buttons that appear in the Header & Footer Elements group of the Design tab on the Header & Footer Tools contextual tab.

Excel 2013 offers a wide variety of keystrokes for moving the cell cursor to a new cell. When you use one of these keystrokes, the program automatically scrolls a new part of the worksheet into view, if this is required to move the cell pointer. The following table summarizes these keystrokes, including how far each one moves the cell pointer from its starting position.

To access File Open options in Excel 2013, use the drop-down button attached to the Open command button located at the bottom of the Open dialog box. These options enable you to open the selected workbook file(s) in a special way, including: Open Read-Only: This command opens the files you select in the Open dialog box’s list box in a read-only state, which means that you can look but you can’t touch.

Excel 2013 displays a Paste Options button with the label, (Ctrl), to its immediate right at the end of the pasted range, after you click the Paste button on the Home tab of the Ribbon or press Ctrl+V to paste cell entries that you copy to the Clipboard. When you click this drop-down button or press the Ctrl key, a palette appears with three groups of buttons.

If you’re looking for a quick rundown on what’s new and cool in Excel 2013, look no further! Just a cursory glance down the first few items in this list tells you that the thrust of the features is being able to be productive with Excel 2013 anytime, anywhere!Complete cloud file supportThe new Excel Save (File→Save) and Open (File→Open) screens make it a snap to add your SkyDrive or company’s SharePoint team site as a place to store and edit your favorite workbooks.