Another most important part of Ms Office 2007 suite, Ms Excel is the most widely used spreadsheet application around the world.

Here I am sharing some really useful shortcuts and time-saving features of Ms Excel 2007.

Insert Date & Time

To insert the current date in a cell, press CTRL + ;
To insert the time, press CTRL + SHIFT + ;

Colour your Sheet Tabs

You can colour-code the tabs on your Excel spreadsheets for easier navigation. Click the tab you’d like to colour, then right click on it and choose Tab Color. Select the colour you want and click OK.

Your tabs can be coloured however you like.

Hide your Sheets

Right click on the sheet tab you want to hide, and select Hide. To reveal it, right click on any sheet tab and choose Unhide.

Clear Formatting

Highlight the cells you wish to reset, right click the Home menu, and under “Editing” sub section, Click small eraser button and , select Clear Formats.

Sort things Out

You can rearrange the data in a spreadsheet any way you like by clicking the column(s) or row(s) you want and then right click and select sort and in sub menu, select any sorting option you want.

All together Now

To select the entire spreadsheet in one shot, click the box in the top left corner that joins the columns and rows.

Mathematics & Formulas

Excel supports a whole range of maths to calculate the data you need. The basics are easy enough to get a grip on:

•To start a formula, you need to enter = in a cell first
•Use the row and column addresses to perform operations

•You can use +, -, / (divide), * (multiply), ^ (power of) and brackets to separate the operations. So for example, typing =(A1+B1)/C2*D5^2 would take the value in A1, add it to the value in B1, then divide it by the value in C2 multiplied by the square of the value in D5. As you update entries in A1, B1, C2 and D5, the formula will also update to reflect this.

•To simply add up values quickly, use the SUM command. For example, =SUM(A1:A6) would add up all the values in A1, A2, A3, A4, A5 and A6.

You can see the formula for cell C9 in the formula field (shown next to the fx). Here it’s adding up all the values from C3 through C8, even though the numbers only start at C3. If any values were updated, or a number put into any cell, say C2, the value in C9 would also change to show the total sum.

The Extend-Series Function

The best way to explain this function is a to demonstrate with an example.

1.Type out in a vertical column: 1, 2.. then select the entries as shown below

2.See the little dot at the bottom right-hand corner of the selection? Left click and drag that down a few cells, then release. Low and behold, Excel will figure out the number series and will add the extra values automatically.

You can also do the same with formulas, and it will alter all the cells referenced in the formulas accordingly.

Make Excel 2007 save to “.xls” format by default

Like other MS Office 2007 products, Excel 2007 also uses a highly incompatible .xlsx file format for saving files by default, which makes it difficult to share with friends and colleagues who don’t have the same version.

To change this:
1.Click the Office button in the top left
2.Click the Excel Options button
3.On the left-hand side, select Save
4.Change the Save files in this format drop down box to Excel 97 – 2003 Workbook
5.Click OK