Author: Gary Knott

You can easily add icons, stickers, illustrations and more to your Excel file. You can use these to spice up your dashboards to show an icon next to key output figures such as “Bike sales”.

Simply follow the six simple steps shown in the screenshot.

1. Select Insert
2. Select Icons on the ribbon
3. Select Icons in the dialog box
4. Enter one or more search terms or select a category from those provided (not shown in the screenshot as they disappear as soon as you start to search)
5. Click on the icons you want
6. Click on “insert"

Each icon is generally available in two versions: unfilled (white) and filled (shown black).

Once inserted in your file, you can move them around and format them e.g. to change the colour. Select an icon and you get an extra ribbon "Graphics Format" with various options.

You can add a text box next to your icon with a description and another text box with a value. You can make this dynamic so that the value updates depending upon the current content shown on your dashboard: simply enter a formula for the text box in the formula bar = (cell with value). You cannot perform any calculations here (e.g. using IF), so perform these, if necessary, in the source cell.

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Did you know? Excel now has a Quick Analysis tool.

⚡📈 Select some data and the Quick Analysis icon appears at the bottom right with lots of options organised in the following areas:

• Formatting
• Charts
• Totals
• Tables and
• Sparklines (mini charts in individual cells).
  
  

For example: If you have multiple columns to SUM, you can use the Quick Analysis tool like this.

1. Select your data
2. Select the Quick Analysis tool that appears (or use the shortcut Ctrl Q)
3. Select Totals
4. Select Sum

🤩 Check it out!

❌😣 A client wanted to calculate the percentage of sales for all P&L lines. Such a ‘common size P&L' is useful for comparisons e.g., of years or of different companies. His first formula in row 3 (see screenshot above) gave a correct result. But when he copied this down, the denominator in each formula referred to the row above and not the sales figure in row 2.

📗 This is because cell references in copied formulas are automatically amended by Excel e.g. to refer to cells in the same relative row or column. The technical term for this is relative referencing. Often this makes sense e.g. you want a copied SUM formula to always add up the values in the same column as the SUM formula. But sometimes (as in this example) this isn’t what you want.

✔🤑 Here the denominator in the formula should always refer to the sales value in row 2 (cell B2), so the formula must read = (cell with value)/B$2. The dollar sign in front of the row number 2 fixes it, so it does not change when you copy the formula (see screenshot above).

💡 You can fix a column or row or both by manually typing in the dollar sign at the appropriate place(s) in your formula. Alternatively simply press F4 when the cursor is in or next to the relevant cell reference. This fixes (puts a dollar sign in front of) both row and column. Press F4 again to fix just the row. Press F4 again to fix just the column. Press F4 again to remove the fixing completely as the following example sequence shows.

B2 ➡ $B$2 ➡ B$2 ➡ $B2 ➡ B2

You can remember this order as follows: both, row, column, none. With practice, it becomes second nature to press F4 twice to fix the row only or three times to fix the column only.

As a general rule for fixing: Fix as much as necessary but as little as possible. In the example, it is only necessary to fix the row. And always review the results to identify and correct any errors.

This is just one of many how2excel tips you will find in my best practice book: Avoid Excel Horror Stories available on Amazon.

You have customised a chart, then copied both chart and related data to another area ready for new data. You then amend the copied data, e.g. to show sales of a different business and…. oh! There is a problem…

What you expect

The copied chart should be linked to the copied data – this is logical but not what actually happens.

What you get

The copied chart is linked to the original data so doesn’t change when you amend the copied data. The selected data for the copied chart must be manually edited. This is a pain. ☹

And when you do that, you may well notice a second problem…

If you have edited the original chart e.g., changed line colours, added customised markers and data labels, these are mostly lost when you amend the data source in the copied chart. ☹

↪ The workaround

You can copy the entire sheet, then cut and paste the data and graph on the copied sheet back to the original sheet, but this is inefficient. You may also have to edit the axis labels e.g., for years if these were linked to a row at the top of your (copied) worksheet.

✔ The proper solution

Dear Excel development team at Microsoft… will you please fix this?

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