How to add a line break to a cell in Excel

Today we are going to show you a little trick but that can be very useful. How to insert a line break in a cell.

There are 2 ways to insert it, depending on the purpose.

What are they? Let's see:

Another way to count unique values in a range in Excel

Not long ago I wrote an article about how to count the number of unique values in a range. That trick was basically using the SUMPRODUCT and COUNTIF functions. Today we are going to see another way to calculate it.

To understand what we are trying to do it is always best to use an example. We have a list of names in the range A1: A14, which we have called Name_list.

How many of these names are unique? The answer is obviously 11. But how we calculate it? We saw earlier that can be calculated using the SUMPRODUCT and COUNTIF functions, but today I want to show you another way to perform the same calculation, but this time using the FREQUENCY and MATCH functions.

And what formula is that?

An Excel dashboard about the UK general election 2015

Hello Excel-folks, today I want to share with you a nice informative Excel dashboard that I created for the UK general election on May 7th. I focused on the main 7 parties (those ones that appeared on the ITV debate). See how the dashboard looks like in a few screenshots:

An alternative to traditional charts in Excel - Sparklines

Hello everyone

Today let's talk about something that Microsoft introduced for Excel 2010: Sparklines!
These geniuses that can make visualisations easier and faster. There are many times we show a lot of charts and we can overload our presentations, and a simple chart (or sparkline in this case) would be sufficient to convey to the listener what you intend to do.

And what are Sparklines?

Sparklines are tiny charts that are aligned to a row of a table of data and help you visualize the data to show a quick visual representation. They are basically in-cell charts.

COUNTIF tips

The COUNTIF function can provide us with very useful information. From a range you can count empty cells, the non-empty cells, or cells with all text. Let us see it with an example.

Selecting a range from many using the CHOOSE function

A while ago I wrote about the how to convert long NESTED IF formulas to a simple formula with the CHOOSE function. Today we are going to see what else we can achieve by using the CHOOSE function.

We can fetch a range from a selection of ranges

How do we do that?

Let's see by looking at one example:

Say that we have 4 ranges, {A1:A10}, {B1:B10}, {C1:C10} and {D1:D10}, and that depending on a condition or a selection by the user we want to use one of them, for example, we want to sum up the range.

=SUM(CHOOSE(2, A1:A10, B1:B10,C1:C10,D1:D10))

5 cool tricks for PivotTables

Today we are going to see 5 super tricks to use when working with PivotTables. With these tricks you will increase the potential of the functionality of our good friends the PivotTables.

1. See which transactions make up a value in the PivotTable

How to count the number of unique values in a range in Excel

Hello, on many occasions we have a list or range with lots of data, and we wondered how many of those values or data are unique, and we have had to develop a complex solution by adding helper columns and doing multiple operations.

That is no longer necessary !!

Because we can calculate the number of unique values in a list with a simple formula.
And what formula is that ?? Let's see ...

How to calculate AGE in Excel

Well today I want to look at one of those problems we face from time to time, and that is none other than how to calculate the exact age using Excel, and considering that having to include leap years can present a bigger challenge than we initially anticipated. Well let's see how it's done.

In this tutorial we will look at three methods to calculate age in cell C2, being cell A2 the date of birth and B2 today's date, calculated through the Excel function TODAY.

Conditional Formatting - Formula to search values

Today we are looking at another example of using formulas in conditional formatting.

It is recommended to first read and understand the entrance Conditional Formatting - formulas for selecting cells.

Imagine you have the list of European football teams, located in the range B5:B31.

What we want to achieve is to enter some text in a cell, for example D2, and if that text is in any value from the list then highlight the cell(s) in the way you want.

To do that the formula to be used is:

Conditional Formatting - Formula to highlight duplicates, errors and omissions

Today we are looking at another example of using formulas in conditional formatting.

It is recommended to first read and understand the entrance Conditional Formatting - formulas for selecting cells

1. Highlight duplicates in a list

For this example we will use a standard list of data like this. This list is in the range B7:B23.

So the formula to highlight duplicates is:

=COUNTIF($B$8:$B8,$B8)>1

How to build a Waterfall chart in Excel

A Waterfall chart???? Yes, in this post we are going to see what I mean by that.

The Waterfall chart in Excel is a type of chart that includes what appears to be floating columns, which help to better visualize the contribution of all parties to the total.

Dependent drop-down lists in Excel

In a recent entry I talked about how to insert drop-down lists in Excel. Today I would like to show you how to insert dependent drop-down lists. Basically what this means is to have 2 or more drop-down lists with the second one having as content a range that depends on the selection made in the first one. Look at the images below:

There is a drop-down list for a list of countries. Depending on the country chosen, the second drop-down list will display the list of cities from that country.

Conditional Formatting - Formula to highlight any day(s) of the week

Today we are looking at another example of using formulas in conditional formatting.

It is recommended to first read and understand the entrance Conditional Formatting - formulas for selecting cells

For this example we will use a normal list of days. In my case the list is in the range A1: A15.

Conditional Formatting - Formula to highlight alternate rows or columns

Here's an example of using conditional formatting formulas.

It is recommended to first read and understand the post Conditional Formatting - formulas for selecting cells

For this example we will use a normal table like this.

As can be clearly seen the table is for Moe's Tavern, and it shows a record of the daily sales.

1. Highlighting alternate rows

Conditional Formatting - formulas for selecting cells

An area where more flexibility is allowed in conditional formatting is the use of formulas for selecting which cells that must be formatted. In this section we will see examples of what kind of usages we can have with this option.

• Formula to highlight alternate rows or columns
• Formula to highlight specific day of the week
• Formula to highlight errors, omissions, repetitions
• Formula to highlight cells that contains a search value

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But first let's see how a formula for conditional formatting is introduced.


1. First you have to go to Conditional Formatting> New Rule

Guide to Conditional Formatting in Excel

Conditional formatting in Excel is a very useful tool for analysing data and made it easy to give a special format to a group of cells based on value of another cell. Among the uses that can provide you is the power to apply a specific font or different fill colour to those cells that meet user-specified rules and thus facilitate their visual identification. Here I present a series of entries for better understanding of the tool.

1. Conditional Formatting - what it is and how to apply

2. Highlighting cells using conditional formatting

3. Formulas for selecting cells

• Formula to highlight alternate rows or columns

• Formula to highlight days of the week

• Formula to highlight errors, omissions, repetitions

• Formula to highlight cells that contains a search value

4. Conditional Formatting - Data Bars  (coming soon)

5. Conditional Formatting - Color Scales  (coming soon)

6. Conditional Formatting - Icon Sets  (coming soon)

7- Advanced techniques 1 (coming soon)

8- Advanced techniques 2 (coming soon)

Highlighting maximum / minimum value of a series in a chart in Excel

Have you ever had a chart and wondered how you could highlight the maximum or minimum value of the series in that Excel chart.

We will discuss exactly that today.

Let's see how we can do it and create a chart like the one below:

Convert long NESTED IF formulas to a simple formula with the CHOOSE function

Anyone who has used Excel for a while will have found on more than one occasion long formulas that use the IF function inside another IF that in turn is inside another IF. This is normally called NESTED IF.

An easy example of NESTED IF would be:

= IF (B1 = 1, "Apple", IF (B1 = 2, "Orange", IF (B1 = 3 "Pera", "Grape")))


Obviously instead of the name of the fruits we could write a formula, or a cell.

= IF (B1 = 1, A1, IF (B1 = 2, A1-C1, IF (B1 = 3, A1 * D1, A1 ^ 2)))

Drop-down lists in Excel

The drop-down list in Excel is a powerful tool that simplifies the process of choosing values ​​for the user. It is a technique widely used in which we can create lists that have the source data located on another sheet in Excel, which are hidden from the main sheet.

In this post we will look at two ways to create a drop-down list, first using data validation and then using the form control option.

1. Drop-down list with data validation