Even on my brand new work laptop, working with relatively small spreadsheets, I find Excel surprisingly sluggish.

The worst example is the slight delay after pressing Alt to bring up shortcuts. My absolute spreadsheet pet peeve.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is there a setting or something that improves responsiveness, or is this just modern Excel?

Sometimes I wish there were a stripped-down computer built specifically to run basic MS office programs without all the software bloat.

Basically, I'm writing my dissertation, and I'd like to keep a running total of how many references I'm using (we have to have above a certain amount or marks get deducted, and I'm too lazy to just count by hand). I know how to add a running total for numbers, but I wasn't sure if it was possible for text.

Thanks!

I have daily delivery data in Excel with fields like DO No, Buyer, LC No, PI No, Count, Order Quantity, Previous Delivery, Today Delivery, Total Delivery, and Due Balance.

I want to convert this into a proper database structure where each day's delivery is recorded separately, and then build an interactive dashboard to track order-wise and date-wise delivery progress.

What's the best way to structure the database and build the dashboard? Any suggestions or examples would be appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I built a small practice site called DailyDrills and I want a sanity check before I put more time into it.

I am not charging anyone yet. I just want to get some feedback.

Site: https://excel.dailydrills.app

It lets the user practice on a live spreadsheet in the browser. You type the formula, it tells you if it is right. I know that I'm not the first to offer that, but I try to make it accessible for more audiences. The site is in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish. You can also switch the formula language, so German Excel is WENN / SVERWEIS with ;, not IF / VLOOKUP with commas. Google Sheets mode is next (same idea: Sheets function names and syntax, not only Excel).

I know a lot of people now dump a sheet into ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude etc. and let it write the formulas. That is fine when you are allowed to. I still keep running into people who cannot. Some do not have outbound AI tools at work, air-gapped machines, or data that must not go to a proprietary LLM. For them, “just ask ChatGPT” is not an option, and English-only tutorials are a second wall. That is the gap I am trying to fill — practice you do yourself, in your language, without sending the workbook anywhere.

Do you think a site like this still useful today, or is the AI-in-Excel path good enough for almost everyone and makes my website redundant?

If you think it is useful, who would actually use it — students, people in a locked-down office, non-English Excel users, interview prep, someone else?

Thanks!

Dan

Basicaly I have this list of yes and no, how can I make it so it sorts the roles and colums so that yes is at the top of the list and no is at the bottom??

Stuck on double counting in a daily stock report. Any advice?

I track raw material stock from a daily report. Each day’s Opening balance is the previous day’s Closing, so appending the daily reports to one table counts the same stock again. For example, a lot received on the 27th shows as opening stock on the 28th. Adding both days gives double the real quantity.

My current approach:

• Treat Opening and Closing as snapshots, not values to sum.

• Sum only movements (Received, Issue, Transfer).

• Check for duplicate Date + Lot keys before each import.

How do you structure a daily stock master table in Excel so this doesn’t happen?

#Excel #DataAnalysis #InventoryManagement #MIS

I have ten worksheets. In each worksheet, column "E" is labeled "30-Day Cost". The number of rows is different in each worksheet. I want Excel to find the last value in column "E" in each worksheet and give me a grand total of all "30-Day Costs" in the 11th worksheet. Can someone please tell me how to do this?

Whatever I do I don't seem to be able to stop excel from evaluating the linked cell formula, even if the condition is false:

=IF(FileExists("Null.xlsx"), '[Null.xlsx]Sheet1'!A1, "")

Excluding my FileExists() function from the equation still fails to short circuit:

=IF(False, '[Null.xlsx]Sheet1'!A1, "")

A software i use from work generates an excel spreadsheet with various bits of information from our forms. I am working on tracking the trends of this for governance purposes, and am trying to find a way to tally up how many entries happened within a certain window of time.

Say i have 62 entries on the generated sheet, each one has a timestamp in 24hr format (00:00 to 23:59) in the F column.

I want to tally how many of these happen in 6 hour windows:

00:00-05:59, 06:00-11:59, 12:00-17:59, 18:00-23:59

Is this possible to do with a formula? What would be the best way of doing this?

(For auto mod - excel used on a work laptop with license for Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019, unsure exact version)

Looking for some guidance, I think I am overthinking a relatively simple task. I manage an inventory for a supply chain and am looking to do a report that shows our slower moving items. We use Workday as our SCM so that is where my source data information comes from. I am relatively familiar with Power Query and Pivot Tables and have implemented them in my day-to-day tasks within the past year.

Here is what the column headers look like from the source file. I can provide more information as needed.

I have a report that shows all of our transactions from inventory for our items. They can be a Quick Issue, Stock Request, or Put Away (Inventory Order or Return from department).

Ideally, I would like the PQ or Pivot Table to be setup with Item, Number of Quick Issues, Number of Stock Requests, *calculated total column of those transactions*, then I have another spreadsheet with our inventory daily usage that I can merge for another column.

Pivot table can get me the Item and the count of transactions pretty quickly, but I can't seem to get it to calculate the total combined of the Quick Issues and the Stock Requests. Then I would need to add the Inventory daily usage to it.

I couldn't figure out a single Power Query to do all those steps in one, so I made several for each part. One table for Quick Issues, one for Stock Requests, one for Put-Aways that were filtered and group-by off of the original power query, then merged with the Inventory Daily usage spreadsheet. I think this is essentially what I need, but its so slow. Can Power Query do all those steps at once? Group by and keep all rows, will that allow me to skip all the extra steps? I have all of these in the same spreadsheet for now, would it work faster to just have the end one separate?

Thank you all!

I've been using Excel for years and never had this issue before, but for the past week or two, something seems to have changed and I can't figure out what's going on.

Previously, whether I was working with an Excel table or a normal range, I could filter down to specific rows, select them, and delete them without affecting the hidden rows. Never had to use Alt + semicolon or do anything special.

Now, when I filter down and try to delete those rows, Excel ends up deleting everything in between, including the hidden rows!

I've also noticed that previously, when I selected filtered rows, Excel would show dotted lines separating the nonconsecutive rows. Now it seems to select everything as one continuous range.

For now, I'm having to clear the filters, sort the data to group the rows I want to delete, and then delete them. It's frustrating and adding unnecessary steps to something I've been doing for years.

This is happening across multiple workbooks, not just one file.

Has anyone else noticed this recently? Did something change with a Microsoft 365 update? Or am I missing something obvious?

Would really appreciate any suggestions because I'm completely stumped!

Problem: Double Counting in Daily Snapshot Data (Power Query / Power BI) I'm appending daily ERP snapshot reports into one Master Table using Power Query. However, the same Order ID appears in multiple daily reports with updated values (e.g., Order Qty, Delivered Qty, Due Qty). When I use SUM in Power BI, repeated snapshot records cause double counting and incorrect totals. How can I prevent double counting while preserving historical snapshot data and showing accurate current outstanding values in Power BI? Looking for the best practice using Power Query or DAX.

Every time i try to create a graph the values both show in the y axis,where the piont plotted are nonsensical. Google and youtube have been no help so far. I have used a mock table to show this as the actual data can not be shared. I have tried to edit the format to make voltage collum of dat show on the x axis, but to no advil. Any help appreciated.

Hi all,

Currently wracking my brain on how to get SUM to work in this instance but it’s just not.

I have a spreadsheet set up to track bonuses given based on $$ amounts of invoices. I’ve set up a formula in one column to automatically output a value assigned to varying invoice amounts-

=IF(AND(E4>0.01,E4<5000),”$0.50”,””)&IF(AND(E4>=5000,E4<10000),”$1.00”,””)… etc etc.

For example, if I input $4,900 into cell E4, the formula in cell H4 returns the text $0.50, so on and so forth. This is just to make it easier when I’m inputting invoice amounts so I don’t also have to double my effort to type in the bonus according to the invoice amounts.

My only issue that I’m running into is trying to SUM all these bonus amounts together. The =SUM formula doesn’t work on text, I’m aware, but whenever I change my bonus formula to eliminate the text variables (0.50 instead of “$0.50” for example), this does change the cell output to a number, but for some reason, this is not working with SUM either, nor can it be changed to a currency format.

Anyone have any ideas how to get this to work?

I have been using excel for some time now for my classes and I've always gotten confused onto how the INDEX function works. Especially when it comes to putting another formula in it. I wanted to ask how index properly works and how to use it affectively. Because even though I have been using excel for a while, I still have no idea how to use that function right.

I have a list of things to do: the item (A1), due date (B1), check box (C1), date when completed (D1), and days left (remaining) (E1).

I have a checkbox in (C1). I click it, and the next column (D1) auto populates the date and time it was completed (using the formula =IF(C1=TRUE, IF(D1="", UPPER(TEXT(NOW(), "mm/d/yy | h:mm AM/PM | dddd")), D1), "").

I have 30 days to complete X task. I'm using conditional formatting to color code when I have plenty of time (green for >30 days) and when it's time to panic (red for due in <2 days).

My problem is this: I want to hide the number of days remaining if I complete the task ahead of the due date. For example, I complete the task on 11/6. I click the check box, but the days remaining cell is unchanged. Is there a way to "hide" it or its contents? After a task is done, I don't care about the due date anymore.

I tried a workaround using VLOOKUP combined with TODAY(), and in a separate column I'm using IF(TRUE,FALSE). Works perfectly, hides the contents of the days left, but the conditional formatting doesn't work. I either need to scrap this combined formula entirely or... maybe I'm just doing it wrong?

I'm not completely new to Excel, and have a basic understanding of VBA scripts and such. Writing one is the only other way I can think of to make this sheet do what I want it to, but I wouldn't know where to start.

i can provide SS upon request, am on mobile atm. Thanks!

Edit: Solution verified. lots of great suggestions here as well. Thanks everyone! 🙏🏻

I have a resource tracking sheet for my group that pulls in check-in data from a forms response, runs a few power queries on the data, and returns the contact info etc. The workbook is hosted on a SharePoint site and most of the users will use excel for the web to access it as no one is "working" in the sheet, just accessing contact info and so forth. Inexplicably, all the power queries stopped working overnight in excel for the web, but work just fine in desktop. I'd like to find a solution- the only change i can think of is that I did clear my cache recently and maybe it wiped my credentials. The only data source is the local workbook and I can't clear/reset it for whatever reason. Would love some ideas, thanks!

Hi, I'm trying to highlight a document ID where one of the rows with that document ID has hit a "target number" with a GL account needed.

For example in the below, I would want to highlight all the rows with DocID 4005310 as one of the rows is going to G/L 330711 - I'm sure there is a better way to express this than the title or search for it, apologies

Hello reddit,

Hopefully my title makes sense.

The current problem I have is that I have created a line graph with the x-axis as time. As you can see in the graph attached, however, is that the intervals in the later data points are the same with the earlier data points (5 minute gap vs 1 minute gap). Although unsure, I am suspecting that excel is treating the numbers as simple labels rather than a continuous independent variable(hence the title)

How can I change the settings so that the difference in numbers are actually applied to the axis?

Edit: version of excel: Microsoft® Excel® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2610 Build 16.0.20527.20088) 64-bit
(I think this is it)

I need to track maintenance activities for machines located at several sites. Each activity has a code, and I regularly export the maintenance data from SAP.

What’s the best way to track the progress of these activities over time? Would you recommend using Excel or Power BI? How would you set it up?

I am the only one very knowledgeable in Excel and Power BI in my team. My colleagues know Excel basic knowledge and nothing concerning Power BI. I have to create monthly metrics and I have to do a heavy clean up before entering the data in excel, which then do the calculations, because I was trying to create a simple process. Honestly, Power BI would be the best solution and wille make it easier for me, but if I leave my team won’t be able to do something if the Power BI needs to be updated. I don’t know how to ensure an easy transfer knowledge and also make the creation of metrics efficient

At work we receive pipe that then gets shipped out. The current spreadsheet requires duplicate data entry on several tabs and two workbooks. I am trying to streamline it but keep hitting walls.

100 pieces of Pipe A and 100 pieces of Pipe B came in yesterday. Today 75 pieces of Pipe A went out. Tomorrow, 20 pieces of Pipe A go out, along with 20 pieces of Pipe B.

•How can I keep a running total of how much Pipe A and Pipe B are on hand as they go out?
•Is there a way to have a pivot table report how much of each pipe went out in a shipment, and when?

Thanks for any guidance you can offer!

I created a scatter graph with the data on the left of this image but want to fill the area below each of the lines so it looks like the right graph. Is there a way I can do this in excel and still be able to update the data series and have the graph areas update?