Happy Fourth

For most people in the United States, this is a holiday weekend. Yesterday, July 4, was Independence Day, celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Because the holiday was on a Friday this year, that means that the festivities will, no doubt, continue through the weekend. In our town, fireworks have been going off for a couple of nights and I expect them for a few more.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this past week I opened the doors to my Using Dates and Times online course. I know you may be doing lots of celebrating right now, but you may want to take a minute to check the course out. It provides all the info you need to become a wiz at slicing, dicing, and otherwise manipulating both dates and times in your workbooks.

You can find complete information on the course here:

https://usingoffice.com/dates-and-times/

Plus, you'll note that for a limited time (through this next Tuesday) you can enroll in the course for 25% off the already low price! That means that, during this early bird period, you can enroll in the course for as little as $89. That's a fantastic deal for the "how to" information provided in this course!

I hope your weekend is a safe and happy one and that you enjoy the tips in this week's issue of ExcelTips.

—Allen
     

ExcelTips (menu) for 5 July 2025
Information functions
Determining a Value of a Cell

Cells can store all sorts of information that can be formatted and displayed in a myriad of ways. If you want to quickly get to the value stored within the cell, you can use the N worksheet function.

Read this tip »

 
Formulas
Separating Names into Individual Columns

If you have a list of names in a column, and you want to separate those names into individual cells, there are several approaches you can take. This tip discusses how you can pull out various parts of the names in your list.

Read this tip »

 
Formatting Made Powerful

Discover one of the foundational building blocks of Excel. Custom formats are the basis for all cell-level formatting in Excel, and you can master their use. Display your data exactly and precisely as you want.

 
Powerful spreadsheets
Hiding and Unhiding Rows

When building a worksheet, you may need to hide some of the rows or unhide other, previously hidden, rows. It's easy to do; here's how.

Read this tip »

 
Workbooks
Automatically Hiding the Personal Workbook

If you leave your Personal.xls workbook visible from one Excel session to another, you may find that you unwittingly make changes you never intended to make. Here's some ideas on how to protect the workbook or at least stop yourself from making those unwanted changes.

Read this tip »

     

Special Note!

I've been publishing ExcelTips for years. Decades, actually. The newsletter you are reading right now is for very old versions of Excel. I still publish it because I know that some people are still using very old versions of Excel. Most people, however, are using newer versions of the program. If you are are using a newer version of Excel (2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, or the version in Microsoft 365), then you should seriously consider changing to the version of the newsletter designed for you. You can do so by clicking this link.

Thanks for your support of ExcelTips, and I hope you enjoy whichever version of the newsletter you receive. If you have any questions, just let me know.

 
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