Tag Archives: Format

Do Not input “-” for zero. Use proper formatting in #Excel

Posted on December 5, 2021 by MF

Do you input a hyphen to represent zero? If you do, please stop doing so in the future. The proper way of displaying “-” for zero is to apply relevant cell format to it. E.g. Using Accounting format with no … Continue reading →

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Insert blank columns to table in #PowerBI Desktop

Posted on May 31, 2020 by MF

In Excel, it is a common (but not necessarily a good) practice for people to add a thin blank column in a table to give a visual effect of divider.  Like the screenshot below: To insert a blank column in … Continue reading →

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Posted in Power BI Desktop | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Copy chart formats to other charts in Excel

Posted on August 21, 2019 by MF

If you know Format Painter, the on top of your mind solution should be using Format Painter to copy Chart Formats to other charts.  However, it doesn’t work… 😦 No worries.  Copy and Paste comes to recuse!! Really?!

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Posted in Excel Tips | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Hide and Seek – Cell Content

Posted on March 22, 2018 by MF

Don’t be shy!  Let silly things continue!  Let’s Hide and Seek with #Excel again! 🙂 Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 You may download a Sample File – Hide and Seek Cell Content for the above cases. If you know the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Format | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hide and Seek – Cell border

Posted on March 8, 2018 by MF

Making cell border in #Excel should be something really basic.  However, some people may have found it frustrating/confusing to play Hide and Seek with borders just hoping that they will be displayed in the way they want it. For example, … Continue reading →

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The making of an interactive CV in #Excel

Posted on January 27, 2018 by MF

What to do with Linked Picture to create something interesting in #Excel? How about an Interactive CV to show off your Excel skills!? First, why? Once upon a time when I updated my CV, I was thinking… Everyone states something … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Tips | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Adding bullet to each line in cell

Posted on April 16, 2017 by MF

Does it sound familiar to you? Are you using Excel as word processing tool? If you have experienced the task shown above, you should know how tedious and time-consuming it could be as you cannot convert each line into bullet … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Tips | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Display single letter Day of week in Excel

Posted on May 21, 2016 by MF

Is it achievable?  Not by formatting but formula.

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Reference to a cell without source number format

Posted on April 16, 2016 by MF

You probably knew it… when we make a direct reference to a cell, i.e. input =A1 in A2, the cell A2 will then follow the number format of A1.  Put it in other words, if the number format of A1 is … Continue reading →

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Input fraction number in Excel

Posted on March 19, 2016 by MF

This title sounds a bit silly,  but I do believe many users must have experienced frustration when they tried to input a fraction number as simple as 1/2 in Excel. When we input something like x/y, Excel assumes that we are … Continue reading →

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Show number in thousand (k) or in million (M) by using custom format

Posted on March 14, 2015 by MF

The custom format to show number in thousand or in million is simple: #,##0,“k” #,##0,,“M” The “k” or “M” is optional, depend on whether you want to show it in the header or in the figure itself. The trick is … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Basic, Excel Tips | Tagged | 12 Comments

Date Formats – A trick to format date with “st”, “nd”, “rd”, “th”

Posted on November 8, 2014 by MF

Well, there is no such custom format for date in Excel… However it can be achieved indirectly, with helper cell 🙂

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Posted in Excel Tips, Formula | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

Text Alignment – Fill

Posted on June 7, 2014 by MF

We talked about examples of using “Text Alignment – Indent” in the previous post.  In the coming posts, let’s talk about the rest of the less commonly-used text alignments.  Actually, I find it a bit challenging to cite real-life examples … Continue reading →

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Posted in Format | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Format part of a formula result… A workaround (non-VBA) solution

Posted on May 1, 2014 by MF

How to format part of a formula result? In a normal text string, we may format part of the text to highlight a specific information.  For example, if we input the text string “Today is Thursday, 01/05/2014” in A1, we … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Tips, Format | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Excel Basic – Looks can be deceiving

Posted on December 12, 2013 by MF

Once upon a time, I was questioned about the accuracy of calculation in Excel just because one saw a formula “3% x 100” (A1*B1) yielding a result of 2.5 (C1).  WHY???? As a basic but important rule, DO NOT trust … Continue reading →

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Posted in Excel Basic | Tagged | 1 Comment