Do you use spreadsheets a lot? I bet you’ve seen your fair share of error codes. Try these easy one-minute fixes.
Master Excel with these 5 genius tricks
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You can’t keep track of everything on paper. Excel can play a significant role in your daily workload. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro user, there’s much to learn — like these five useful Excel tricks.
Want to become an Excel expert? It’s a good strategy for small business owners who want to grow this year. After all, you’ll generate tons of data. Speaking of which, here’s how to stop third parties from selling your data.
Maybe you’re overlooking the most useful Excel strategies. Scroll down for five Excel tricks to simplify your professional and personal life.
1. First of five useful Excel tricks: Solve errors
Microsoft Excel is chock full of practical formulas. They help save hours you’d otherwise spend clacking away at a calculator.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to make mistakes when calculating through Excel. Its formulas reference many cells, and you can confuse them if you don’t pay attention. Use this table to fix common Excel error messages:
| Error message | Why did you get it? | How to fix it … |
| ##### | One of your columns isn’t wide enough. | Increase the column width. |
| #DIV/0! | Your formula refers to a cell that has 0 or is blank. | Make sure your divisor in a function isn’t blank or zero, or try these other solutions. |
| #REF! | Maybe you deleted or moved a cell one of your formulas refers to. Either way, your cell reference isn’t valid. | Restore any cells you deleted or change the formula. |
| #N/A | One of the values in your function or formula isn’t available. | Replace #N/A with new data. |
| #NAME? | Excel doesn’t recognize the text in your formula. | First, make sure the cell name exists. Then, check for spelling errors. |
| #NULL! | You made an error when specifying an intersection of two areas. | Use a colon (:) to separate references to a contiguous range of cells. Are you referring to two areas that don’t intersect? Use a comma (,) instead. |
| #NUM! | Your formula or function has invalid numeric values. | Make sure the arguments used in functions are numbers. |
| #VALUE! | You used the wrong type of variable or value in a math operation. | Double-check your formula, function and cells referenced by the formula. |
2. Transpose data in a snap
So you transferred some data into Excel — but it didn’t look how you wanted it to. Maybe you entered the data as rows when you wanted them to become columns. Don’t worry: You don’t have to reformat each cell manually.
With these steps, you can rotate data in your worksheet from columns to rows and vice versa.
- First, select the data in your desired column or row.
- Then, press Ctrl + C to copy the selected cells.
- Right-click an empty cell in a row or column where you want the copied cells to go.
- Select Transpose from the paste options.
Just like that, you’ll be able to reformat your data.
Fed up with Excel? This site creates formulas for you
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Few things frustrate us more than the inability to crack an Excel task independently. We love formulas and conditional cells, but the best way to utilize these features isn’t always easy. Tap or click for tricks to get the most out of Microsoft Word and Excel.
🧠 Excel in PowerPoint: Incredible. Google’s NotebookLM can now make video explainers in over 80 languages using your uploaded notes. Slides, voiceover, zero hallucinations. It’s like a multilingual teacher who lives in your laptop. It’s not sexy, but it’ll explain your white paper while you fold laundry.
Microsoft 365 update: The Microsoft 365 app on iPhone is now Microsoft 365 Copilot. You can use AI to summarize docs and answer questions about them. The catch? You won’t be able to edit Word, Excel or PowerPoint files in the app anymore. Rollout starts Monday.
Struggling with Excel? 3 tips and tutorials to help you out
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Ah, Excel. It’s been around since the ’80s, yet it can still stump many of us. There’s a lot to learn, from creating complex formulas to navigating pivot tables.
So, where do you turn? You can buy a paid course, which will give you a lot of bang for your buck, but you can also start smaller — and free.
Oh, sheet: Excel’s =COPILOT() feature writes formulas for you. But here’s the catch: Microsoft says it’s not accurate, not reproducible and shouldn’t be used for finances, legal docs or … well, Excel’s entire job that’s continually regressing.
🔎 Find anything fast in Microsoft Word: Can’t remember how to insert a table? Don’t waste your time digging through menus and settings. Click the search bar at the top, type in “table” (or whatever else you need), and the option will pop right up. FYI: This trick works in Excel, too.
🖥️ What’s that shortcut again? Just glance down. This mouse pad (23% off) puts all your go-to Excel, Word and PowerPoint commands at your fingertips. Perfect for Office power users or anyone who wants a smoother workflow.
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⚡ Office apps get speed boost: Microsoft’s new Startup Boost preloads Office apps like Word and Excel in the background at boot. Apps chill in a paused state until you open them, shaving seconds off launch time. It’s already live for some Word users and will hit everyone by September. Your PC: now preheating like an oven.
📄 Google trick for docs: You can look for specific file types by adding filetype: to your search. For example, type filetype:pdf user manual (PDF), filetype:xlsx monthly budget (Excel), filetype:doc job application (Word) or filetype:ppt marketing presentation (PowerPoint).
💻 Save big money on Office apps: Skip the subscription and try LibreOffice instead. It’s totally free and comes with Writer (like Word), Calc (Excel) and Impress (PowerPoint). The best part? It also works with Office files, so you can open and save .docx, .xlsx and .pptx. Go to libreoffice.org > Download.
Freeze frame: In Excel, it helps to keep your column and row headings stuck in place while you scroll around big spreadsheets. Select the cell where the actual data starts, and then click the View menu > Freeze Panes.
Microsoft Excel World Championship: Yup, it’s a real thing. Contestants get a data-loaded spreadsheet and create formulas to solve challenges and rack up points. Want in? Sign up here. For the rest of us, Microsoft’s pushing Copilot in Excel, so you can just tell it what to do and ask for pre-written formulas.
📂 Size matters: Use Excel often? Save big files in an .XLSB format instead of .XLS. The file size will shrink by up to 75%. Nice one!
When you don’t excel, people spreadsheet: On Tuesday, July 30, Outlook was stalling, the Starbucks app crashed and Office 365 was down for eight hours. We now know a cyberattack took down the cloud computing system Microsoft Azure and a ton of apps and services with it. D’oh! Microsoft’s attempts to stop the attacks actually made the outages worse.