Author Archives: MF

About MF

An Excel nerd who doesn’t work on Excel most of the time at current job...... 🤔 Recently in love with Power Query and Power BI.😍 Keep learning new Excel and Power BI stuffs and be amazed by all the new discoveries.

Excel Magic in One Minute

Posted on June 15, 2019

Last Friday was a public holiday in Hong Kong.  Yes, a long weekend!  Guess what I dd over the long weekend?  I’ve created a playlist – “Excel Magic in One Minute” on my YouTube Channel. The name says it all … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Tips | Tagged | Leave a comment

Apply Conditional Format for alternate row color based on groups…

Posted on June 8, 2019

…that works even when filter is applied. The situation: We have a table that we would like to apply color banding based on groups.  We can achieve this by inserting a helper column to identify the sequence of each group, … Continue reading →

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Unstack uneven data across columns with #Excel #PowerQuery

Posted on June 5, 2019

This is a continuation of the previous post, in which I showed you how to unstack two columns of data by using Pivot Table as a helper, and together with a couple of excel tricks.  As mentioned, that approach is only … Continue reading →

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Unstack data across columns with #Excel Pivot Table

Posted on May 29, 2019

Another commonly seen problem in daily work.  Many hours are spent on reshaping data, we all know that.  Nevertheless, if you are good in Excel, doing this task is not difficult at all.   Indeed, there are many ways to solve … Continue reading →

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Waterfall chart is just a few clicks away with #Excel 2016

Posted on May 18, 2019

Did you know, you can plot a Waterfall chart in #Excel in less than a minute…Provided that you are using Excel 2016 or later! 🙂 No Kidding! You may download a Sample File to follow along.

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Split cell contents separated by line feed into rows with #Excel #PowerQuery – Part 2

Posted on May 13, 2019

Last week, I showed you how to split cell contents separated by line feed into rows with Power Query.  That was easy when we are dealing with only one column.  If you don’t know how, you may read the post … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel in Action, Power Query | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Free Excel Dashboard Webinars by Mynda Treacy

Posted on May 11, 2019

If you’ve ever felt like: “My Excel reports take way too long to update each month/week” “I spend hours collating and cleaning data, updating formulas and charts and then no one reads my reports anyway, what’s the point?” “If I … Continue reading →

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Split cell contents separated by line feed into rows with #Excel #PowerQuery

Posted on May 4, 2019

After an in-house training, a colleague came to me and asked if there is a way to do the following: The problem here is the contents in cells are separated by a line feed (line break).  A cell may contain … Continue reading →

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Identify missing files in a folder with Power Query

Posted on May 1, 2019

It is a common task to compare two lists in Excel.  This can be achieved with MATCH function.  But what if you want to compare a list of filenames stored in your spreadsheet, with the files you’ve got in a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel in Action, Power Query | Tagged | Leave a comment

Quick Tip – #Excel AutoSum

Posted on April 13, 2019

While SUMMING data is probably the most common task in Excel, I am surprised that many people are not aware of this Excel feature – AutoSum.  It is super handy especially when you know the shortcut of it, which is … Continue reading →

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#Excel Add current selection to filter. What it does?

Posted on April 7, 2019

Get multiple filter criteria with Excel Auto-Filter This post is in response to the following Mr.Excel video where Mr. Excel Bill Jelen solved the problem with Advanced Filter. Indeed I got a similar question from a colleague recently for filtering … Continue reading →

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#Excel Flash Fill in action with 16 examples

Posted on March 31, 2019

Flash Fill was introduced in Excel 2013.  After 6 years, it is still a hidden gem of modern Excel that most regular Excel users do not even know its existence.  Whenever I show to my colleagues what Flash Fill is … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Tips | Tagged | 2 Comments

Birthday Treat Calculator

Posted on March 16, 2019

A powerful tool for a silly thing.  Why not?  🙂 Long time ago, I wrote a blog post How much do I need to pay? which was not really related to Excel but calculation of a random daily event.   … Continue reading →

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Extract FirstLast names in CamelCase with #Excel formula

Posted on March 10, 2019

In the previous blog post, we see how Flash Fill extracts First Name and Last Name from an email address in a format shown above.  I’ve also recorded a video for that post. Flash Fill is so smart to detect … Continue reading →

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Turn CSV data into insight like a pro with Excel 2016

Posted on March 3, 2019

Many people are not aware of how easy-to-use and powerful modern Excel is. I mean Excel 2016 or later. In this post, I will show you how to turn CSV data into insight in a just a couple of minutes like a pro. Techniques used: Flash Fill, Quick Analysis and two new chart types (Histogram and Pareto). Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel in Action | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

My second #Excel Video on YouTube

Posted on February 23, 2019

Glad to share with you my second video here.   This video is about how to plot a compelling to compare Actual vs. Budget, Target and Last Year data.  The written instruction is available in previous post – A compelling chart in three … Continue reading →

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Posted in General | Tagged | 2 Comments

A compelling chart in three minutes…

Posted on February 17, 2019

In business world, we often compare actual sales to various benchmarks such as budget, target, and last year. In this post, I am going to show you step-by-step how to make a compelling chart for this purpose. This is basically a simplified version of bullet chart, and is super-easy to create. I hope you find it useful and relevant. Continue reading →

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My first #Excel video on YouTube

Posted on February 9, 2019

Kung Hey Fat Choi!  This week is Chinese New Year.  I wish you a fruitful, healthy, and rewarding Year of Pig! I have almost one week off for CNY holiday.  I have cleaned my PC and spared 50G+ space in … Continue reading →

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Posted in General | 2 Comments

Did you know… there are many nice Excel Templates readily available?

Posted on February 3, 2019

Did you know that there are many nice Excel Templates readily for usage? Next time when you start a New workbook, browse or even search for a template that suits your need. Or you may start from a template. Why re-invent a wheel? Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Tips, Template | Leave a comment

Learn something amazing from Mynda’s #Excel Dashboard webinars

Posted on February 3, 2019

Free Excel Dashboard Webinars We don’t know what we don’t know.  The best way is to learn something new is to explore the web (or world), and/or learn from experts. Sometimes we just don’t know, or even don’t expect what … Continue reading →

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