Excel is 40 this year, and I decided to mark the occasion by creating a zine.
Continue reading “Excel at 40 Zine!”Excel at 40 Zine!
Using the camera tool to toggle charts
In the video above (which is silent), I’ve used Excel’s camera tool to toggle between different versions of the same chart.
This post was inspired by Juliana Smith and I had enormous help from this article by Chandeep Chhabra to get to the solution.
Continue reading “Using the camera tool to toggle charts”A day’s Excel training in Cardiff
Last week I delivered a day’s Excel training in Cardiff for a medium-sized charity.
I designed this bespoke course for a group of finance and data folk who had already done my half day Introduction to power query course and had good Excel knowledge to begin with.
I always love training people who work together, because I know that there’s an increased chance that the learning will continue after the course.
What we covered
I’ve posted before that I don’t have a standard “intermediate” or “advanced” Excel course. This is because clients have different needs, and different starting points. I don’t want to waste time showing you stuff you already know, or are never going to need.
But as an example of what could be included in a day’s bespoke Excel training, let’s look at last week’s Cardiff session. I had previously circulated a questionnaire to the delegates to understand what they already knew and what they wanted to find out more about.
We revised key building blocks like Tables, and concepts such as number vs text. We then went onto some upgrades. For example, we went through XLOOKUP and the many ways it’s better than VLOOKUP.
And we also covered lots and lots of new Excel content.
Some of this we did via brief examples – such as REGEX, Checkboxes and TRANSLATE. (It was interesting to see how it copes with Welsh!)
Dynamic arrays were completely new to everyone, so we spent a bit of time looking at FILTER, UNIQUE and GROUPBY, and also discussing what made dynamic arrays different.
We then finished with a session on dynamic charts, including some data visualisation tips.
Throughout the day I shared examples of useful shortcuts and navigation tools to make everyday work in Excel a little bit more efficient.
Book me for Excel training in Cardiff (or Newport)
I can design and deliver a day of bespoke Excel training in Cardiff (or Newport) for £875 (£825 for not for profits). I’m based in Bristol so Cardiff is a really easy trip for me and I always enjoy spending time in Wales.
Please get in touch via my Contact page to discuss your needs in more detail.
Should I learn Power Query or Power BI?
Sometimes prospective customers ask me: “Should I learn Power Query or Power BI”.
Full disclosure: I provide Power Query training. So this may not be an unbiased opinion.
Continue reading “Should I learn Power Query or Power BI?”How to conditionally format a bar chart in Excel
You can’t conditionally format a bar chart in Excel – or can you? In this post I set out a couple of options for how to do this.
Continue reading “How to conditionally format a bar chart in Excel”Structuring data in spreadsheets – for humans and computers
Structuring data in spreadsheets is really important for producing good financial models and reports.
However, data designed for humans to read should look different from data designed for computers to read.
Continue reading “Structuring data in spreadsheets – for humans and computers”Excel consultancy – what is it?
What do I mean by Excel consultancy?
Here are some examples of financial modelling and Excel consultancy work I’ve done in the last six months;
Continue reading “Excel consultancy – what is it?”Does Groupby replace pivot tables?
Does GROUPBY replace pivot tables?
The new functions GROUPBY and PIVOTBY are now available in the current channel of Microsoft Excel, and I’ve been playing with them to try to answer this question.
My conclusion is that it isn’t a simple yes/no answer. What is more useful to think about is “when” or “how” GROUPBY should be used instead of a pivot table – and vice versa.
Continue reading “Does Groupby replace pivot tables?”“The key didn’t match any rows in the table” error in Power Query
“The key didn’t match any rows in the table” is one of the most common errors in Power Query.
The way it’s always explained is that it is caused when the original data changes format or name, or has been deleted.
However, there is a third, related option, which I’m writing about here because it stumped me for a while.
Continue reading ““The key didn’t match any rows in the table” error in Power Query”What I learned at the 2025 Global Excel Summit
I attended the 2025 Global Excel Summit last week – this time in person for the first time.
It’s become a bit of a tradition that I blog about what I learned, so here goes!
Continue reading “What I learned at the 2025 Global Excel Summit”