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Questions tagged [microsoft-excel]

A spreadsheet application by Microsoft. Use this tag along with [vba] if your question involves programming Excel in VBA, and with [worksheet-function] if it involves an Excel formula or worksheet function. Also add the the specific version tag (e.g. [microsoft-excel-2019] or [microsoft-excel-365]) as features and functions may vary between them.

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables and a macro programming language called VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).

Microsoft Excel 2010

Features and usage

The latest version is Excel 2021 for Windows and macOS. Features include calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables and a macro programming language called VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). A new user-interface design, dubbed the "ribbon", was introduced with Excel 2007 for Windows. A similar UI was introduced to Excel 2011 for OS X.

Excel is the among most widely used spreadsheet programs, especially in business environments. The first version was introduced in 1993, and new versions have been released every 2–3 years since then.

Recent versions

Subscription based license/version

Windows (stand-alone license/version)

Mac (stand-alone license/version)

Other tags

More specific tags include for scripting, for formulas and for pivot tables.

More information

Samples and Tips

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How do you view the bottom of really tall cells in Excel?

When there are very tall cells in Microsoft Excel, trying to scroll via mouse or even via scrollbar (clicking on "<-" "->" pointers) just jumps below to the next cell, hiding the bottom content of the large cell in question. Is there an option to…
zmische
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Excel Conditional Formatting Escaping a Question Mark

I would like to use a conditional formatting rule in an excel file that would color any box with a question mark in it red. It seems that Excel is using a question mark as a wild card and will turn all cells with at least one character in them red.…
kzh
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How can I set Excel to always import all columns of CSV files as Text?

Though I try to avoid it, I occasionally have to open a CSV file in Excel. When I do, it formats columns containing numbers, which makes them useless for my purposes. As far as I can tell, the only way to prevent this from happening on import is to…
William Gunn
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How do you auto resize cells in Excel?

I have copied some data into Excel 2010. I have found that some of the cells need to be widened to allow the data to fit. How do I automatically adjust the height of the cells to fit the content?
Dunc
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How to remove the print preview lines in Excel 2010?

Somehow or other I have managed to switch on the print margin lines in Excel 2010. I cannot seem to turn them off. I went to Page Layout->Page Setup->Print Area->Clear Print Area but the lines remain on my screen. Any ideas to get rid of them?
Mark Allison
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Excel Auto-Fill a Series Without Mouse (Keyboard Only)

So when I want to extend a series or something along those lines, I can highlight a group of cells, then click on the bottom right corner of the highlighting box and drag down. Excel will then attempt to automatically extend the contents as well as…
jtpereyda
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How to make cells perfect squares in Excel?

In Microsoft Excel, I want to make the height of first three rows and first four columns (12 cells in the top left corner) such that these cells are squares. How can this be done? Surprisingly, Excel says: Row height: 15 Column width: 8.43 So,…
Lazer
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How to delete rows not in filter

I have a very large table in Excel (1000's of rows) and I filter it to only show 10 rows. I wonder if there is a way to delete the rows not shown (i.e. don't meet filter conditions)? This would enable me to reduce the file size before I send…
GreyCloud
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What is the maximum allowed rows in a Microsoft Excel .xls or .xlsx

Is there a limit? I couldn't find one posted.
Andy
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How to "unpivot" or "reverse pivot" in Excel?

I have data that looks like this: Id | Loc1 | Loc2 | Loc3 | Loc4 ---+------+------+------+----- 1 | NY | CA | TX | IL 2 | WA | OR | NH | RI And I want to convert it to this: Id | LocNum | Loc ---+--------+---- 1 | 1 | NY 1 | …
devuxer
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Is it possible to sum an entire column without setting explicit cell boundaries in Excel?

I'd like to sum all the values in a column starting from a certain minimum value, but I don't want to give an upper bound because any value in the table will be appropriate for summing (minus the header of course) and I'd like to do it the "right"…
bwerks
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What is the Excel hotkey to re-calculate all formula in sheet?

I have a sheet that contains many formulas. But they do not recalculate automatically when I change input. I'm looking for a hotkey, that can re-calculate the sheet. According to this page, F9 calculates all sheets in all open workbooks, and Shift…
Davuz
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How to force Excel to open CSV files with data arranged in columns

I generate a CSV file with an extension .csv in which every piece of data in one line is separated with a comma: 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 The file is sent via email and I want that when a customer opens it she sees data arranged into columns. Is such thing…
Timofey
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Excel copy-paste: always match destination formatting

I use Excel to crunch numbers, so I usually don't want to copy the formatting along with the text. But this is the default. Is there a way to default to always match destination formatting when pasting into Excel?
Leftium
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Comparing two strings in Excel?

I need to compare two strings in excel and determine if they are equal, the strings are in adjacent cells. For example, given: apple apple water water pear carrot apple water dog dog pear carrot Apple apple the formula on the…
Flethuseo
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