Excellerate your skills

I consider myself pretty good when it comes to Excel (except for that new version with that darn ribbon bar - but that's just 'cuz I've not used it yet), but I'm always looking for new tricks and short cuts and new ways to do things. As part of that search for knowledge, I subscribe to a number of email lists (and rss feeds, and magazines and just about anything else I can get my hands on). One of those lists is the Excel Addict. Written by a Canadian, eh, Francis is great at showcasing knowledge that's relevant for the novice user and even the "Excel Addict."

Here's one that I learned from this week...


A Little-Known And Pretty Neat Data Entry Trick (XL2000-XL2010)

Excel is full of surprises! Once again, I have stumbled upon something that may have been there from 'Day 1' but I never recognized it...until now.

By default, when you enter a value in a cell and press Enter, the active cell moves down. If you want to enter data that goes across the rows, instead of pressing Enter each time, you can press Tab to move one cell to the right. That's pretty easy right? But when you get to the last column and need to get back to the first column in the next row, how do YOU do it? Do you reach for the mouse then point and click the cell in the first column? Or do you use the arrow keys to move to the cell?

I remember seeing this Excel feature in the past but I never understand how it worked until now. When you press Tab to move the active cell to the right and then press Enter on the last column, Excel remembers which column you started (tabbing) from and automatically jumps one row down and back to that column.

That makes for much easier data entry when you need to enter data across and then down...as long as you remember this trick. Tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, Enter, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, Enter, etc...

From http://www.theexceladdict.com/

If you use Excel at all, it's worth the few seconds to subscribe to this list.