Have you ever wondered what all the different cursors do in Excel?  Here is a short video to show what they all do and where to place your cursor to achieve your desired task.

Many times when working with a large spread sheet you need to be able to view column headings at any point in your document.  You can do this by freezing the panes. First go to the View tab, and in the Window group you will click Freeze Panes.  From here you can Freeze you panes based on the cells you have highlighted, the first row, or first column.  To unfreeze your panes simply follow these same steps, except when you click Freeze panes this time you will see an Unfreeze Panes option.

Do you ever need the same heading information and/ or formatting in multiple sheets? Instead of inserting the information multiple times into each spread sheets here is how you can enter it only once. Simply hold down the CTRL and click on each Sheet tabs that you would like to group. Typically, the tab for the sheet you are in is white while the others are grey, but now all the sheets that you have grouped will be white.  Once you have entered the information and completed the formatting you would like to appear on all your sheets, remember to go back and select an individual Sheet tab to ungroup the sheets.

Excel can be a little tricky in getting exactly what you want to print. In Excel we usually need certain records and/or columns to print, and it isn’t always separated on different pages.  Here is a way to have exactly what you need print.  First, highlight the cells you would like to print, and then click on the “Page Layout” Tab.  In the middle of the “Page Setup” group you will click Print Area.  Lastly, in the small drop down list click “Set Print Area”.  Now when you go to print your document the only thing that will print will be the cells that you highlighted. If you ever need to print your whole document or change the area you need printed, just follow these same steps but click “Clear Print Area” instead.

Here is a quick short cut you can use to add a time and or date stamp into a cell in Excel.  For a Date Stamp, first select your cell and then press CTRL+; (Control Key and the Semi Colon key).  For the Time Stamp, once again select your cell and then press CTRL+ SHIFT+: (Control Key, Shift Key, and the Colon Key).

Many of us have used the great auto fill features that Excel has to complete a list, but what about those few times when we need the exact same information in each cell?  Here is how you can do that without all the copy/ pasting.  First highlight all the cells you need to have the same text, and then just start typing the information you would like to have in all the cells (note: DO NOT try and click in a cell before typing this will just un-highlight all your cells.) When you have finished entering your information instead of hitting Enter, press CTRL+ ENTER and it will fill into all your highlighted cells.  This also works if you need the exact same formula in several locations of your spreadsheet.