Comments on: Three Things You Didn’t Know About Excel

By: John Wyman

John Wyman — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:10:50 +0000

Very nice video on Excel. Can use the Validation approach
now.

Well done.

John

By: Deepa

Deepa — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:40:01 +0000

Hi,
Nice video, short and sweet.. to the point
I vouch for the fact that using these surely saves lot of time..
I have been doing this for quite some time.. and boy surely saves time.

However, I wish to add one tweeny little things
It is possible to call the list from a diffrent sheet ( of the same workbook — where you can have all the lists)

This is how i do it

In different sheet
Type some city name
select the list (range of cells)

Click the name box
Typein a meaningful name ( I have given “City”)

Come to main sheet
Select colum / range of cells
Data – validation – List ”
Type =City

Here “City” is the name of the list.
and, “=” sign must be there

Hope this helps
Loved this space
Regards !

By: AdamV

AdamV — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:07:49 +0000

@Jay If you data is arranged in a tabular style then you can use the intersection of row and columns for which you have defined names, so if column C is called “Sales” (as a defined named range $C:$C) and row 6 is called Bob, then you can simply use =Sales Bob
or =Bob Sales
to get the intersection (the space is the delimiter here, which is why you can’t have spaces in defined names)
Data arranged like this would probably be better off setup as a List (what is now called a Table in Excel 2007, a slightly improved version of the same thing)
However, if you don’t have this tabular format with a single cell for the results (ie multiple rows for Bob), then SUMIF is probably the function you need, also note that in Excel 2007 there is an extended version of that function – SUMIFS (note the plural) which takes multiple criteria, producing (in your pseudo-syntax):
SUMIFS(Sales(X) IF Person = Bob AND Region=North AND Quarter=1).
I agree that if you do want a similar calculation for lots of people, then a Pivot Table is almost certainly a better idea in the long run.

For Data Validation to short lists, simply type the list in instead of a cell range, so you don’t need any cells used for this.
You can copy a cell with validation on and then use Paste > Special to copy just the validation settings to another cell which saves some effort.
Also note if you have several cells with the same validation criteria and you change one, you can tick the box to “apply these changes to all other cells with the same settings” to make sure you don’t forget any.

@Steven / Mark – Using a named range as the source for data validation is a way to use lists on other sheets. So, first you create a list on sheet1, say, then define a name which points to that range, then in your data validation on sheet2 just use =MyNamedRange. An added benefit of this method is that you can easily extend the range just by redefining the name, rather than going back to the validation formula, and the validation makes sense if you choose a good name such as “ProductCodes” or “CurrentEmployees”

The O’Reilly Excel Hacks book is great. I think there is a second edition out now, but this was my review of the first edition:
http://veroblog.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/excel-hacks-david-and-raina-hawley/

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:39:29 +0000

@Mert – In the past I used a video camera recording to Quicktime and SnapZPro recording my desktop and them put them together in iMovie or FinalCut. It was a very painful process. I’m using ScreenFlow now and it records both sources simultaneously and then I can edit back and forth between them. It significantly reduces the overhead required to make a tutorial like this.

By: Mert ALEMDAR

Mert ALEMDAR — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:17:45 +0000

Hi, Great tip thank you.
I want to ask something different.
How are you recording your videos. I mean in the same time I’m watching you in thumpnail format at the right and in the same time I’m watching your screen. How are you doing this multiple recording? Is it in same time recording? Or are you recording two seperate video and merging? ? realy wonder how this two in same time could be happened? Thank you.

By: Carolyn Bahm

Carolyn Bahm — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:25:22 +0000

I really appreciate finding this video — very useful! I also passed along to my teammates at work. I look forward to more.

By: Kevin H

Kevin H — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:45:21 +0000

Great post! I thought I was pretty good with excel, but even I learned something about the transpose feature. Great!

By: Parish

Parish — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:35:33 +0000

Jay, have you tried using a SUMIF formula?

When I started using ‘advanced’ excel features, I found ‘Excel Hacks’ by o’reilly press to be extremely useful (conditional formatting, nested subtotals, text-to-columns, etc. will save power-users TONS of time.)

By: Business Hacks mobile edition

Business Hacks mobile edition — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:42:32 +0000

[...] taking full advantage of the spreadsheet program’s power. Productivity501 sheds some light on three of Excel’s lesser-known, but extremely useful, capabilities. They [...]

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:01:49 +0000

@Jay – You can get that information (summing sales for each individual) by using a Pivot Table.

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:32:34 +0000

That’s great, but is there a way to take the named rows concept and get all the sales for a particular person?

SUM(SALES[x] IF PERSON[x] == ‘BOB’)

I’ve been trying to do this for a while now

By: juanac

juanac — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:28:25 +0000

Great ! I liked the video.
Anyway, I’d prefer shorter ones, i.e. 2-3 minutes with short tips insted of long ones.

By: Mandar Vaze

Mandar Vaze — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:00:11 +0000

Mark,
Good to see you in person

I’ve seen someone use the “Validate to list” earlier, but didn’t know myself how to do it.

Transpose will also be helpful, I had to do exact same thing few days ago, and would have saved me some time, had I know this earlier.

Thanks
-Mandar

By: Neil Kelty

Neil Kelty — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:45:39 +0000

Mark:

You’ve done a couple of these video posts in the past with Firefox and another with Excel – they are absolutely WONDERFUL. And I’d really like to see you do many more of these – I know it probably takes more time, but it is well worth it – you’ve got an excellent narration voice.

Great job!

Hopefully we’ll see some more video posts.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:16:25 +0000

When working with the list validation, you can always have it in hidden/protected columns/cells. This is helpful if you don’t need the list actually visible as such.