Faster At Excel

3 Ways To Convert Text To Numbers In Excel

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3 Ways To Convert Text To Numbers In Excel

Sometimes you get data and something doesn’t look right. See below. The data in the left column is formatted as text. Therefore, it is useless in calculations (you can see that, when I summed the column, the result was zero).

What you will often want instead is for these “numbers” to be truly formatted as numbers — so that you can use them in formulas.

Below, I have converted the text in the left column to actual numbers in the right column. You can see that the SUM function now works.

excel-text-vs-number-formatting

How Do I Know The Data Is Formatted As Text?

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5 Quick Data Set Up Excel Shortcuts

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Excel Shortcuts For Data Set Up

Watch the 15-second video below to see if you can figure out the 5 shortcuts I used to set up the data for easier use  This is something you can do easily in 15 seconds any time you get a new data file that begins in A1 with a header row in row 1.  (Alternatively, you can also create a Table with Ctrl+T — which will do much of the same, but much more — and maybe some features and formatting you don’t want).

See if you can do it in under 15 seconds.

Scroll down for my solution.

Here are the tasks (starting point is cell D8):

  1. bold top row
  2. freeze top row
  3. add filters

CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC TO BEGIN THE 15-SECOND VIDEO CLIP

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Excel Shortcut Bible: Comprehensive Excel Shortcut Book

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Become An Excel Shortcut Ninja With My New Book, The Excel Shortcut Bible

excel-shortcut-bible-book

This most comprehensive and well-organized book of its kind employs a systematic approach to learning Excel shortcuts.

You’ll become more efficient by learning:

  1. over 260 practical shortcuts for 200 common Excel tasks
  2. “building blocks” to construct over 2,000 additional Excel shortcuts on your own
  3. 10 easy ways to memorize Excel shortcuts – and how to avoid memorization altogether

…and more

You’ll also get a FREE downloadable Excel database of over 2,250 Excel shortcuts – the most complete collection of its kind. Use this valuable resource to organize and create your own custom shortcut list.

Start working smarter, not harder, and get more out of each day with Excel shortcuts. With The Excel Shortcut Bible, you can earn:

  1. promotions
  2. pay increases, and
  3. more respect from your peers

…as you become faster at the world’s most popular business software.

 

Get started today!

Don’t suffer as a slowpoke.

Learn Excel shortcuts and get Faster At Excel.

Excel Magic: 4 Clever Shortcuts To Copy And Paste Simultaneously

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Ready For Some Magical Excel Shortcuts?

Did you know you can copy and paste simultaneously in Excel?

Just use Ctrl+D, Ctrl+R, Ctrl+Enter or Autofill.

excel-copy-paste-ctrl-d-r-enter-autofill

These magic tricks don’t fit every situation.  But when they do fit, they’re lightning fast.

Below is a magic show — and after that the magic tricks are discussed. [Read more…]

12 Basic Excel Data Analysis Shortcuts

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Easy Shortcuts For Excel Data Analysis

Below are 17 steps I take with fresh data, along with the shortcuts I use.

12 deal directly with data analysis; the other 5 are generic.

If you do a lot of Excel data analysis, these shortcuts will help you fly through your work much faster.  Consider them arrows in your quiver.

 

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