QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE: ESSENTIAL MICROSOFT EXCEL IN 1 HOUR
FEATURE OVERVIEW EXAMPLE
TRANSPOSE Flips a table so the columns become
 rows (and vice versa).
DATA Allows you to control the input you
 VALIDATION receive from others and keep your
spreadsheet clean.
CONDITIONAL Changes the format of a cell when it
FORMATTING meets certain conditions.
AUTOFILTER Allows you to explore your data by
filtering and sorting.
AUTOFILL Allows you to copy patterns from
one cell to another.
IF
IF STATEMENTS Performs an action if certain
conditions are met.
PIVOT TABLES Automatically summarizes your
data. You can “slice-and-dice” in a
million ways.
VLOOKUP Allows you to search for related
information in your spreadsheet or
other spreadsheets.
GREAT CHARTS Some people may never look at
your detailed data. A great chart
helps them understand it.
DATA CLEANING Sometimes data looks messy or
weird. This will help you fix it.
STEPS
You have customer #'s listed in rows, but,
now, you need them to be in columns.
You can create a drop-down that only
accepts “yes” or “no” and not “maybe”.
If the cell is a negative number, change
its background color to yellow.
Filter your customer list to show males in
Japan whose names start with “C”.
You have a calculation in cell that needs
to be in every cell of the column.
If a person lives in “Brazil”, then insert
“South America” into the continent field.
You want to replace lots of hand-typed
summary calculations with more
automated reporting.
You have a customer name and address,
but you need to pull phone numbers
from another spreadsheet.
You want to visually show total sales by
product.
You have a customer’s full name in one
column, but you need to split it into two
columns, a first name and a last name.
After copying and pasting the table in a new
location, select the “transpose” button from the
paste options.
Select the cells that you want to add validation
to, and click “Data Validation” on the “Data” tab.
Select the cells that you want to add conditional
formatting to, and click “Conditional Formatting”
on the “Home” tab, then apply a rule.
Select a cell in your table and click “Filter” on the
“Data” tab.
In the first cell, where the pattern begins, click
the bottom-right corner of the cell and drag
down as far as needed.
Enter the “IF” function in the cell that you want
the test result entered into.
Select a cell in your table and click “PivotTable”
on the “Insert” tab.
Enter the “VLOOKUP” function in the cell that
you want the data, which you searched for,
entered into.
Select a cell in your table and click
“Recommended Charts” on the “Insert” tab.
Use one or more of the following: “Spelling” on
the “Review” tab, “Remove Duplicates” on the
“Data” tab, “Text to Columns” on the “Data” tab,
the “TRIM” function, and so on.