You can use your favorite social network to register or link an existing account:
Or use your email address to register without a social network:
Sign in with these social networks:
Or enter your username and password
Forgot your password?
Yes, please link my existing account with for quick, secure access.
No, I would like to create a new account with my profile information.
Tips
How-to
News
Videos
Stories
Guest writer Divya Bahl is a blogger for Her Campus, a popular site which offers a guide to life for college women.
Ugh. Excel. It's not as intuitive as a Word doc, and not as aesthetically pleasing as a PowerPoint presentation. If you're more creative than analytical, you might feel as though it's dry and boring and filled with numbers you'd rather not look at. I feel ya - I was a Communication major and thought Excel was intimidating as well.
However, I can tell you that after you familiarize yourself with it, it is the best tool Microsoft Office has - and extremely easy to use! So while I know you'd probably rather be on Pinterest than reading about Excel, I promise if you get through this blog and play around in Excel for a while, you'll be glad you did.
Everything! It's not just for math majors and science projects. It's great for anything you want to make a list for. When I moved to NYC, a friend of mine made a "Restaurant Recommendation List." There is one tab for restaurants and one for bars and fun stuff. The best part - it's categorized by name, neighborhood, cuisine, location, phone number and notes. Whenever we want to go to a restaurant, we open up her Excel doc and filter by neighborhood. It's less overwhelming than searching online on Yelp or MenuPages and much more personalized!
Tons of restaurants with all the info we need! I highlight the restaurants I've been to in yellow!
Filtered by neighborhood! Though, we could have gone further and also filtered by cuisine... (I.e. Pizza in the East Village)
...when I can keep my budgets and lists in a Word doc or OneNote notebook? Because Excel is the most efficient! Microsoft Office even has Excel Mobile, which you can access on your Windows Phone so you can access it on the go! Therefore, if you keep your monthly budget in Excel, you can check it whenever you need to. Not sure if you should buy that those jeans on sale? Enter it into your budget before you buy it to see if you can afford it! (See example below). It's also great when planning big trips, like calculating how much it would cost to go abroad, budgeting for Spring Break. It'll keep you super organized and you'll feel totally responsible and on top of your finances and budgets.
The automatic formula you input will immediately tell you how much you have left. It's like one big calculator!
...But I have no idea what all the formulas are!
True, they can be tricky to master and no one wants to go through and read all the formulas. But for someone who is not doing too many complicated functions, there are only a few you need to know. Here's a quick "cheat sheet:"
Whether you need to seriously budget your income or plan a vacation, or even just organize your favorite nail polish colors, Excel is the best Microsoft Office product to do that. It's literally a big calculator, and with its easy way to filter, all it takes to organize your favorite restaurants and boutiques is a click.
Do you use Excel? Are you going to try now? How does Excel make your life easier? If you haven't had a chance to explore Excel or other Office 2010 applications, try it now for free with the Office Web Apps.
Till next time,
Divya
Comments: (3) Collapse
It won't take even a basic Excel user long to dislike Cell Merging, because it will cause later on formatting issues
Do it this way to remove the hassle:
With Excel 2010, once in a workbook and a range of cells you want to "merge" has been selected, do a Control + 1
Then select the Alignment Tab
Horizontal text alignment
Also check Wrap Text under under Text Control
With this "pseudo" merge, do such things as decreasing a Column width will be unaffected by the "pseudo" merge
I haven't read an article that packs so much good info for a normal user since a long time. Lovely! You can use MS-Excel to calculate your net-worth quickly and easily. In the one column you enter what you own (assets) and in the other what you owe (liabilities). Add both the columns separately and then subtract the totals from each other to find out what your net-worth is today!
Having used Excel for years in various previous versions, I just want to say that the 2010 version is the most confusing, irritating and time consuming version to transition to. I don't have a lot of time and resent the fact that the new version is so different that it's like learning a whole new application. There should be a "button" to make the tool bar look and have the same commands as previously and the "button" should be extremely visible and obvious to the user. I don't like this version at all. Thank you.