Keyboard shortcuts 3: Selecting rows & columns

Following on from the last tip about selecting cells using the keyboard, did you know you can also select entire rows (shift + space) and columns (ctrl + space).

So tell me… are you beginning to think about ditching the mouse yet? Comments below...

Keyboard shortcuts 2: Selecting cells

Here’s another real time-saver as you continue your quest to ditch your mouse in Excel (yes, really, please do that!) - it’s about selecting cells. I guess usually you take the mouse, click in the first cell, drag to the last cell, then release the mouse button. And sometimes you have to do it twice because you don’t aim very well and you either miss or over-shoot.

Well, next time, just hold down the shift key and use the arrow keys to select the cells. Try it 5 times and you’ll find it’s a lot quicker than using the mouse. Why not give it a try now?

Excel keyboard shortcuts 1: CTRL + Page Up/Down

Continuing our little series on keyboard shortcuts, here’s my favourite – never again do you need to use the mouse to move from one sheet to the next – instead, use CTRL + Page Down or CTRL + Page Up to move through your workbook.

Give it a try, and why not use the comments below to share your favourite keyboard shortcut, and I’ll try to feature it in a future blog post...

Embracing Excel's keyboard shortcuts

As subscribers to my Excel e-tips mailing list will know, I’m a big fan of keyboard shortcuts – they save a lot of time in Excel compared to using the mouse. In fact, there are two types of shortcut:

• Direct shortcuts
• Indirect shortcuts

Direct shortcuts
These are accessed by pressing CTRL + another key. For example, press CTRL+X and you’ll cut the info from a cell; CTRL+V will paste.

Indirect shortcuts
These are accessed by a combination of keys pressed in sequence (rather than at the same time). For example, Alt>H>A>C will centre-align the content of a cell.

Over the next few weeks, my challenge to myself is to persuade you to put down the mouse, embrace both types of keyboard shortcut, and make the journey towards working more efficiently in Excel.

To keep up with this series, add your email to the "follow by email" box on the right to subscribe to the blog, or sign up to Naturally Spreadsheets' Excel e-tips mailing list to get the tips delivered straight to your inbox every 2 weeks.

Our favourite Excel training feedback

If you're a customer, or having been reading our blog for a while, you'll probably know that Naturally Spreadsheets is a brand name of Navanter - a specialist communication skills, sales and leadership training company based in London. Naturally Spreadsheets came about a long time ago, when a client asked whether I knew anyone who could do Excel training, and I decided to take on the challenge myself. Since then, our Excel training has gone from strength to strength, and accounts for about 40% of what we do.

Our USP (Unique Selling Point) is that we deliver our training in a soft-skills style, which we find really engages learners in a way that most IT training does not. In today's blog post, we're unashamedly going to blow our own trumpet and show you why you should be using Naturally Spreadsheets for your Excel training - by using some of our favourite feedback quotes from satisfied clients.

"This course was really valuable and taught me new things. Not only new formulas and how to use them but how to use the concept of putting formulas together." Lucy Cooper, The Key Support Services Ltd, London, UK

"Exceptional at explaining Excel simply." Nastassja Beaton, Venture Trust, Edinburgh, UK

"This was by far the best Excel course I have taken, because the pacing was great. I could keep up with everything that was presented and so really learned from and enjoyed the course." Deborah Jeanfavre, Citeline, New York, NY, USA

"Very easy to follow. Walking through the provided examples was really helpful and I liked how the finished examples could be saved for future reference." Michael Haydock, Datamonitor Healthcare, London, UK

"Really made the content come to life, didn’t waffle, was clear and concise and made new concepts easy to understand." Dave Newton, Spectrum Brands, Manchester, UK

"It’s the small 'nuggets' that are absolutely invaluable." Sara Gallagher, Bath Cats & Dogs Home, Bath, UK

"Very clear and comprehensive yet simple enough to not be bombarded with information." Romany Luckcock, IFF, London, UK

"Excellent instructor - one of the main reasons why this class is popular/well-attended/successful." Dominique Fontanilla, Datamonitor Healthcare, London, UK

"This was a fantastic course and I really got on with Neil's clear, logical teaching style. Looking forward to putting this into practice!" Amy Booth, IBI, London, UK

"Managed to establish a classroom vibe although we were all remote." Tamara Makoni, IBI Central, London, UK

 So there you go - don't just take our word for it - try it out for yourself at www.naturallyspreadsheets.com today!

How do I present complex data in an engaging way?

Data presentation is one of those topics which gets poor presenters excited, and which makes audiences groan before the presentation’s even got going! Presenting complex information in PowerPoint™ in a way that truly engages the audience is a skill that very few people have. But it’s something many people want to learn, and which should be learnt to prevent the sort of death-by-PowerPoint™ presentations which are commonplace in boardrooms and lecture theatres around the world.

The combined expertise of Navanter (experts in presentation skills) and Naturally Spreadsheets (our other brand – experts in Excel™) brings you these 5 tips from the audience’s point-of-view to liven up even the dullest data on the big screen…

1: Think about the purpose of your presentation

Why are you presenting this data? Is it to inform, insist or influence? What’s the difference? Let’s see…

Inform: You’re sharing information with me.

Really? Is there any point in giving a presentation? Just send an email...

Insist: You’re telling me to do something.

That would be great, but unless you’re my boss then I’m unlikely to do what you ask…

Influence: You’re trying to persuade me to do something.

Most presentations fall into this category – you’d like me to do something, you’re justifying it with facts and data, and you hope that will persuade me to take action.

2: Don't tell everything

Assuming your purpose falls into the third category above, you want to influence me through the data you’re going to present. Now I don’t need to know everything in your data – some of it really isn’t relevant to me, nor to anyone else in the room. Only present the key points which I need to know in order to convince me of a course of action.

3: Think about the story

To give an influential presentation, there needs to be a story. You might love your data, but I don’t – yet I do love a good story to get me thinking. What story is your data telling? How can you engage my emotions? How can you influence my actions?

4: Don’t show me everything

Excel™ is a great piece of software for calculating answers, presenting things clearly and using visuals (i.e. charts) to communicate a message. Use these things as intended, rather than just showing me a screen-shot of a data table.

5: Make attractive slides

Just like Excel™ is great for data, so PowerPoint™ is great for presenting. Make sure the key points are big enough on the slide, dim or fade the areas which don’t matter to make my eye go straight to the heart of your message. Don’t over-clutter – less is more.

6: Present with the audience in mind

You know your data, I don’t. If you stick something complicated on the screen, I’ll be trying to decipher it myself rather than listening to you. As soon as you show some data, tell me in max 15 seconds what I’m looking at. Use your hands to indicate key areas. Remove the confusion for me so that I don’t have to work it out myself, then you’ll have my attention and can tell me want the data means rather than just what it is.

Next steps

If you’d like to learn to present data like a professional, sign up for our brand new live e-learning course: Presenting Excel™ Data in PowerPoint™.

Playing with dates in Excel

There are occasions for all of us when Excel's dates don't perform as we'd like them to. By understanding a little more about how Excel processes dates, we're better-equipped to solve any problems we might find.

When you see a date in Excel, what you're actually seeing is just a number, formatted to look like a date. The number represents the number of days since 31st December 1899 - it seems that spreadsheets were invented by the Victorians! If you re-format a date cell as "General" or "Number", you'll see the date changes to a 5-digit number, probably beginning with a 4. Today is 41281 - that's the number of days which have elapsed since the turn of the last century!

That dates are stored as numbers is both a help and a hindrance to us as users - it means we can add or subtract dates as we would any other number, which allows us to measure results over time. It also means that although we see, for example, a year in the date, we can't just change the formatting to get at this information accurately - even if we format as year only, Excel is seeing the exact date.

Fortunately, there are functions we can use to extract information from a date. They are:

=DAY(cell ref) - gives the day within a month

=MONTH(cell ref) - gives the month number within a year

=YEAR(cell ref) - gives the year

Using these functions, we can extract anything we want from a date.

Exercise: have a play with the WEEKDAY function and see what it does - any questions, leave a comment below, and why not take a look at our training courses on the Naturally Spreadsheets website?