Excel User Group
Microsoft Excel blogs, forums, files. Read, ask questions, provide answers.
The Excel Team Blog » All Tags » functions (RSS)

Browse by Tags

  • Tips on using seven heavenly text functions

    Harness the power of the suite of Text functions, such as LEFT, RIGHT, MID, FIND, LEN, TEXT, and REPLACE, and you'll be an unstoppable force. In this post, experiment with these functions and build your skills in finding, extracting, and changing text in worksheet cells. ...( read more ) Read More...

  • Free training: Take the next steps in growing your Excel skills

    In early May, we told you about the new video series Excel Skills Builder in our post " Take the first step in growing your Excel skills ." In that post, we announced the launch of lesson 1. Well, we've finally finished the rest of the lessons, and wanted to share this great resource with you! As a reminder, the skills builder is a video series that comprises short (typically under 5 minutes each) videos that give you an overview of a task or feature in Excel. The videos are grouped...

  • Hyperlinks in Excel: Hot or not?

    Have you ever: Inadvertently activated a hyperlink when you only meant to select the cell? Imported a bunch of URLs that aren't hot - but need to be? Imported a bunch of URLs that are hot - but don't need to be? Pasted in links with "friendly" display text, but wanted to show URLs instead? Wanted to stitch together URLs from bits of text in various columns? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then check out these videos to find the answers you need. ...( read...
    Filed under: ,

  • You asked about VLOOKUP

    People are crazy for Excel's VLOOKUP function, and why not? Among other things, VLOOKUP is known for its rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. In all seriousness, VLOOKUP is one of the most widely used, versatile functions in Excel. You typically use it to quickly look up and extract specific bits of information from a big list of data. In the following example, I've instructed VLOOKUP to search for a page ID on another worksheet, find a corresponding page name, and plunk...

  • IF and only IF (video)

    This post is all about IF--not the poem by Rudyard Kipling, or the 1971 hit song by Bread, but the function . The IF function is used in many Office programs, but most of us know it from Microsoft Excel: IF(logical_test, [value_if_true], [value_if_false]) IF is one of the most searched-for words on Office.com, so we thought we’d compile some of our resources on IF so you can find them more easily. ...( read more ) Read More...

  • Try it for free: Count values that meet a condition with the COUNTIF function

    You probably know how to use the COUNT function to count cells that contain a value. But what if you want to count only the cells that meet a condition, such as being greater than or equal to a number or date you specify, or that matches text? That's where the COUNTIF function comes in really handy. Keep reading to learn more, and try out this great function for free using the embedded worksheet in this post. ...( read more ) Read More...
    Filed under:

  • A capital idea: Changing case in Excel (video)

    Unlike Word, Excel doesn't have a Change Case button or keyboard shortcut for magically switching between uppercase, lowercase, and proper case. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to manually retype all your text. (In fact, the very thought of you doing that makes me weep.) Instead, you can use a function designed specifically for this job, or even a macro. Excel MVP Bill Jelen recently created a couple of videos that explain each of these techniques. ...( read more ) Read More...

  • Count your values with the COUNT function

    The process of manually counting values in Excel is time-consuming and error-prone, especially when you have a lot of data. Fortunately, there are a few automated ways to count values. From the questions we get from our customers about counting, it's clear that not everyone knows how to go about it. There are different methods, depending on what you want to count. ...( read more ) Read More...
    Filed under: ,

  • Repair numbers formatted as text

    Today's blog post on repairing numbers that are formatted as text is brought to you by Gary Willoughby, who writes Help content for Microsoft Excel. A few months ago, my new manager e-mailed us (that is, her team of Excel writers). She had a spreadsheet with some columns of numbers that she wanted to total, and the answer was resolving to 0. When you have lots of values in a column and their total is 0, you have a problem: Those numbers may not be numbers at all ! (cue the scary music). Keep...

  • VLOOKUP: No more #N/A

      Today’s blog post is brought to you by Anneliese Wirth, who writes about Excel for Office.com.   To grow your skills with Excel, it’s helpful to familiarize yourself with a core set of functions, or predefined formulas that are built into Excel. One of my all-time favorites is VLOOKUP. If you’re new to VLOOKUP, we have a free, entry-level training course available on Office.com that can get you started. If you’re familiar with VLOOKUP, you’ve no doubt seen this before: #N/A errors really...
    Filed under: ,

  • =VLOOKUP (uhh…now what?)

    Today’s post is brought to you by Anneliese Wirth, a writer on Office.com. On Office.com , the term “VLOOKUP” frequently bubbles up in our list of high-volume search queries. My job is to figure out why this is and what specific information people are actually looking for when they type “VLOOKUP” into the search box in Help or on our web site. The “VLOOKUP” query appears to represent a bunch of different questions. Certainly, one of the main ones has to do...
    Filed under: , ,
Copyright Excel User Group and the relevant contributors, 2010. All Trade Marks acknowledged. This site is a peer-to-peer site and NOT affiliated in any way to Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.