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.
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”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?”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”REGEX formulas in Excel are now rolling out!
REGEX formulas in Excel are now rolling out in the current channel of Excel, just in time for Christmas.
In this post I want to explain why most Excel users, not just hardcore geeks, should be interested in this.
Continue reading “REGEX formulas in Excel are now rolling out!”Creating an Excel template to calculate Employer’s National Insurance changes
I posted on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago about creating an Excel template to calculate budget impact of the changes to Employer’s National Insurance.
In this post I’ll share a few observations, both about the calculations and also the act of creating the template.
Continue reading “Creating an Excel template to calculate Employer’s National Insurance changes”EOMONTH doesn’t work with # references – help?
This is a quick post to explain why EOMONTH doesn’t work with # references (dynamic ranges) and what to do about it.
Continue reading “EOMONTH doesn’t work with # references – help?”Why you should use Cell Styles in Excel
I’m a late adopter of Cell Styles in Excel. Before I started doing financial modelling and consulting work for other people, I didn’t really appreciate how useful they were.
I wish I’d learned them a lot earlier as they would have been helpful in earlier roles, too.
Continue reading “Why you should use Cell Styles in Excel”