Excel Tips

January 18, 2024

I need my sales managers to select a product from our company’s product line. All the pricing lookups in the worksheet rely on the product being entered correctly. I find that if I allow my managers to type an entry, they will find too many ways to misspell items. For example, where I may be expecting PDT-960, they are likely to enter PDT 960, 960, and many other variations. If I could offer them a list to select from, they would automatically select the correct spelling of the product.

Add WordArt to a Worksheet »

January 15, 2024

My spreadsheets are blah. How can I make them more eye-catching?

Use Cell Values as the Source for SmartArt Content »

January 11, 2024

As discussed in "Place Cell Contents in a Shape" on page 582, Excel has been able to use values from an Excel cell as the source for text boxes on AutoShapes for fifteen years. It would be obvious to anyone that the best use of SmartArt would be to populate the text pane with cell references. However, nothing I try allows me to specify cell A1 as the source in the text pane. What’s going on?

Switch to the Format Tab to Format Individual Shapes »

January 8, 2024

Birds Eye Scene style notwithstanding, (see Figure 1469 above), I’ve found that most SmartArt formatted using the Design ribbon looks good. Fonts remain consistent throughout. Shapes have similar effects. While giving Microsoft control over font size will usually create a suitable graphic, sometimes I need to tweak the font used within one shape.