What is (or should be) considered "advanced" knowledge in Excel?

[Greg Truby]

...right-click filling...

Try showin' 'em a right-click drag. :wink: The unwashed heathens won't react. But 99% of your power users will go "no way!" when you show them how easy it is to "copy and paste values" that-a-way -- especially when you drag away and then drop back on top of the original source; i.e. convert formulas to values. [Though, if you've been doing it long enough - your fingers will just sort of do the "Ctrl+C | Alt+E+S+V" on their own, so for a certain percentage of power users (yours truly included) it might actually be slower.]

 

[RoryA]

Ha - I did the right-click drag to Paste Link and only one person even noticed (I have buttons for that sort of thing)

 

[Greg Truby]

Your comment reminds me -- it wasn't until I was teaching classes about fifteen months ago that I ever actually tried out the Paste Link option in the Paste Special dialog. I couldn't believe that ******'d been there all these years and I hadn't tried it before!

 

[RobMatthews]

Your comment reminds me -- it wasn't until I was teaching classes about fifteen months ago that I ever actually tried out the Paste Link option in the Paste Special dialog. I couldn't believe that ******'d been there all these years and I hadn't tried it before!

This is how I learn a lot of stuff: see menu option or Rclick option, and say, hey, I wonder what that does... But so many people just have no wonderment. For those people, it probably applies to their life outlook, not just their excel use.

Plus, I've learnt some cool things in this thread; probably more than in that other thread a wile back about "What are your favourite shortcuts?"

My lovely, intelligent wife tends to put all formulae inside a sum, to wit: "=sum(blahblah)". It's only recently that I've been able to convince her that this is not necessary.

The other thing with keyboard shortcuts, like Alt-W-F: what is the responsiveness of the ribbon like? We are on 03 here, but my other primary program (Autodesk Inventor) is now be-ribboned, and it just doesn't respond immediately, and I find that it misses a key-press or two, if I'm too quick. Plus, of course, the accelerator keys are now different in the ribbon version...

 

[MrKowz]

The ribbon in 07 responds very well. I didn't like it at first, due to spending so many years working on 03; but I find that I prefer the ribbon style now. Easier to find certain options.

 

[Sandeep Warrier]

The other thing with keyboard shortcuts, like Alt-W-F: what is the responsiveness of the ribbon like? We are on 03 here, but my other primary program (Autodesk Inventor) is now be-ribboned, and it just doesn't respond immediately, and I find that it misses a key-press or two, if I'm too quick. Plus, of course, the accelerator keys are now different in the ribbon version...

In 2007/10, you need to do an extra F.... Alt+W+F+F

I still tend to use loads of 2003 short-cut keys in 2010... and fortunately almost all work

 

[arkusM]

Try showin' 'em a right-click drag. :wink: The unwashed heathens won't react. But 99% of your power users will go "no way!" when you show them how easy it is to "copy and paste values" that-a-way -- especially when you drag away and then drop back on top of the original source; i.e. convert formulas to values. [Though, if you've been doing it long enough - your fingers will just sort of do the "Ctrl+C | Alt+E+S+V" on their own, so for a certain percentage of power users (yours truly included) it might actually be slower.]

Always mini lessons here. That is sweet. I just made a macro key-shortcut for the paste values (Ctrl-Shift-V).

Paste Link - Cool never tried that either.

 

[Fazza]

Tis true, Greg, my fingers do the Alt+E+S+V automatically. Though I also have a personal/custom shortcut CTRL-Z to paste special values only, so don't always use the super familiar ALT-E-S-V.

Annoyingly, another automatic sequence ALT-I-C is sometimes a problem for me. If unwittingly it is done when the active cell is in a pivot table, instead of inserting a column as I expect/want it inserts a formula field into the pivot table and even if I immediately use CTRL-Z to undo it, it is to no avail. 'Lucky' that I am 'always' saving working files & go close the file & go to a recent copy without any harm done. I am ALWAYS using CTRL-S to backup my working files. A long term habit - CTRL-S very frequently.

 

[PassTheSugar]

Hi Guys,

I am looking for a bit of advice. When a job is looking for an advanced knowledge of excel, how confidently should I be saying 'Yes' to that question, or Yes to intermediate level given the following information:

- I have been using the Excel 2003 for 7 months every working day, however much of this is simply looking at data in workbooks and changing simple stuff.

- The job is similar (ish) to the job I'm doing now, at a slightly higher level.

- I can confidently do Lookups, sums, navigate confidently around the sheets using all filters and sorting comfortably.

- Can confidently build and use pivot tables

- Some knowledge of IF formulas but very little use (probably just need to practice but never really needed them)

- No knowledge of Macros etc and need to get used to 2010 excel.

- Even with that limited knowledge, probably more advanced than many users in the office

So given that information - where am I on the scale!?

Constructive criticism welcomed and any direction on an easy guide to IF stuff would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[SydneyGeek]

It really depends where you work and what the job requires. If you can do what they need, go for it.
"Advanced" in a general office environment might be very different to "advanced" for a futures trader, for example, and there is a huge range of capability even within those two broad sectors.
The other thing to remember is that someone will consider you to be advanced if you know a bit more than them, a guru if you know a bit more than that.

By the sound of it your skills could be a reasonable match for what they need, but there's nothing stopping you from using sites like this to increase your knowledge. You'd be silly not to.

Denis