Excel Time Savers: Managing Microsoft Office Templates

1.     Navigating your Worksheets

The next time you are looking to move through the worksheets in your workbook using the navigation keys (buttons found to the left of sheet 1), don’t left click, right click instead, this should bring you a list of all the worksheets in that workbook.

2.     AutoFill (The Fill Handle)

Unfortunately, there are still people out there that either are copying one cell at a time, or clicking and dragging down to copy formulas all the way down a list/column. No Need, let Excel do the work for you.

Double-click the fill handle (little box down the bottom right hand corner of cell selected) to automatically fill down when your formula resides aside of other data. It’ll stop when there’s no data alongside it any more or the first break in the data.

3.     Creating the same Table/List in Multiple Sheets (Grouping Worksheets)

The Next time you’re looking to create a table in Excel but have the exact same table in multiple Worksheets.

Start by selecting the First Sheet (click on sheet Tab) and while holding the Shift Key, select the last sheet in the group.

Now whatever task you perform in the first sheet gets applied across the board.

Make sure when you are done to deselect the sheets, so they become individuals again,  just click on a sheet that’s not part of the group.

4.     Duplicating a Worksheet(s)

You have created a table in a worksheet and now you are looking to copy the contents into another worksheet.  The most common way of copying this is to either try copy and then paste or Right click on Worksheet tab and select create a copy.

There is a however a quicker way, left click on worksheet tab as if your about to move the worksheet but hold down the CTRL key and the same time.  Drag or move this sheet (keeping your finger on the CTRL key). This will duplicate the contents of the worksheet.

5.     Quickly Transposing a Table or List

Select the data (List or Table) you want to transpose.

Select Copy from the top left of the Home tab or use Ctrl + C as an alternative option.

Next click on a blank cell within your worksheet, now click on the Paste dropdown button on the Home tab.

A list of options will appear. Choose Transpose from this menu (last option on the second row)

Excel copies the selected cells into the new cells

6.     Shortcut Key for AutoSum

To sum up a group of cells without having to look for the AutoSum button, try hitting Alt + =

7.     Removing blank cells from a List

Option 1:

Highlight all cells (See shortcuts), switch on filters.  From one of the drop-down menus, deselect everything and then choose just the blanks option. Then Highlight and Delete

Option 2:

Highlight all Cells, this time go to the home tab and the Find & Select button.  From there select go to Special; in that dialog box choose blanks.  Right click on any highlighted area and delete. (Make sure these are blank rows or columns not individual cells).

Microsoft Excel is an extremely critical tool in the world of business, education and home offices, but are you using it as efficiently as possible? Even if you are familiar with Microsoft Excel, the number and variety of keyboard shortcuts you can use to speed up your work may shock you.

If you find yourself constantly reaching for your computer mouse or your laptop’s trackpad, you are slowing yourself down and hobbling your typing speed, costing yourself time and energy in the long run. Learning how to correctly use keyboard shortcuts can save you a lot of this time and energy, while boosting your overall productivity. You can find out more about these shortcuts and much more about business, websites and Microsoft Office in our helpful Blog section.

If you found this tip on learning about Microsoft Excel helpful, InvestinU offers a range of training supports for Microsoft 365 which can be found here.

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