Microsoft Excel Blog: Tutorials and How-Tos

Create a treemap in Excel to spot patterns

A treemap chart provides a hierarchical view of your data and makes it easy to spot patterns, such as which items are a store's best sellers.

Use Conditional Formatting with groups in Excel

Can you use conditional formatting with groups of data in Excel by creating a helper column and using the IsOdd and IsEven function.

Protect a worksheet range in Excel

Need to make sure your formula or functions don't get deleted along with other information? You can protect a cell range in Excel.

Use Icon Set in Excel - just two arrows by Chris Menard

Present data in three categories using icon sets in excel. Each icon represents a range of values. I show how to use two arrows in this blog post.

Use Sparklines in Microsoft Excel

Sparklines in Excel provide a fast way to see patterns at a glance. There are three type of sparklines in Excel: Win/Loss, Column, and Line.

Excel - make accounting, currency, and number style zero decimal places by default

Use the Control Panel to change the default decimal places to zero for accounting, currency, and numbers in Microsoft Excel. Video by Chris Menard

Outlook mail merge - personalize email messages

Need to send emails to a group? Instead of sending to a contact group, you can do a mail merge and personalize each recipient's email.

Use the COUNTIF function in Microsoft Excel

The Countif function in Excel is one of the top 10 functions to know. You can use Countif for text, numbers, greater than, and other criteria.

Using Array Formulas in Excel by Chris Menard

Array formulas make checking your work and doing complex functions easier. If you constantly do countif functions, use the Array Frequency function instead.

Compare two lists or columns in Microsoft Excel

If you need to compare two lists or columns in Excel, you can either use conditional formatting or the Countif function to compare.

Enter military time in Excel

If you want to type in military time in Excel, and the time show correctly, here are the steps. This method allows you to calculate the difference between two times.

Calculate difference in time in Microsoft Excel

You can calculate the difference between two times in Excel. Subtract one time from the other time and format the answer for h:mm. Hour function also shown.