Excel Annoyances

Curt is the author of numerous books on Excel and other Office products, most recently Excel Annoyances (forthcoming from O'Reilly). He graduated from Syracuse in 1990 with a degree in political science, moved to Washington, DC, where he worked as a defense trade analyst for four years and as the director of sales and marketing for an ISP for one year. He moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1995 to launch his freelance writing career. When he's not writing, and often while he is writing, he is a professional improvisational comedian with ComedySportz Portland.

Introduction - Entering Data Annoyances - 2 General Data Entry Annoyances - Kill Clippy - Retain Leading Zeroes When You Enter Data - Extend a Numeric Series Automatically - Use the Series Dialog Box to Define A Series of Values - Create Data Series Minus the Mouse - Create a Custom Fill Series - Enter Data into Multiple Worksheets at Once - Allow More than One Person to Edit a File at the Same Time - Add a Carriage Return to a Cell's Contents - Add Symbols to Your Excel Worksheet Restrict AutoCorrect Interference - Keep Web and File Addresses as Plain Text - 9 Importing Data Annoyances - Copying a Word Table into Excel 97 Introduces Blank Rows - Data in Word Files Isn't Available for Import - 11 Cut-and-Paste Annoyances - Put More than One Item on the Clipboard - Prevent the Office Clipboard from Appearing - Control Pasted Cell Formats - Insert or Delete Single Cells - Transpose Rows and Columns - Change the Default Save Location - 15 navigation and Display Annoyances - Keep the Same Active Cell When You Move to a New Worksheet - Shrink the Excel Window - Magnify a Selection - Move to the Last Row in a List - Keep Headers Constant as You Scroll - Search a Portion of a Worksheet - Divide a Worksheet into Multiple Scrollable Areas - 18 Data Validation Annoyances - Restrict Data Entry with validation Rules - Create a Form to Ease Data Entry - Base Validation Rules on Formula Results - Use Data in Another Worksheet as Validation Criteria - Avoid Duplicate Entries in a Column - Explain Data Validation Rules - Highlight Invalid Worksheet Data - Copy a Validation Rule to Another Cell - Prevent Excel from Scrolling Too Quickly - Chapter 2 Format Annoyances - 28 Cell Formatting Annoyances - Format Part of a Cell's Contents - Wrap text in a Cell with Just One Mouse Click - Change Worksheet Tab Colours - 29 Conditional Formatting Annoyances - Change Cell Formatting Based on the Cell's Value - Excel Applies the Wrong Conditional Format - Locate Cells with Conditional Formats - 30 Template Annoyances - Create A Workbook Template - Create a Worksheet Template - 32 Color Management Annoyances - Replace Repeated Colors in the Excel Color Palette - Translate Between Color Palette Position, Color Name, and ColorIndex Value - Copy Another Workbook's Color Palette - Display the RGB Values of Colors in a Workbook's Color Palette - manage Colors and Formats with a Custom Add-In - 36 Workbook Formatting Annoyances - Change Excel's Default Font - How to Tell a Style from a Format - Simplify excel Formatting with Styles - Search for Cells with Specific Formatting - The Case of the Vanishing Gridlines - Hide and Unhide Rows and Columns - Hide and Unhide Sheets - 40 Custom Format Annoyances - Create Custom Number Display Formats - Add Text to a Displayed Numerical Value - Round Values Without using the ROUND() Function - Round Values to the Millions and Display "Millions" after the Value - Align Numbers in a Column by Decimal Point - Create a Custom Date Format - Create C