DH has been using a calculator to add things recorded in Excel

My biggest tip would be learn VBA.

You can do it by recording macros in Excel and then viewing the code they generate.

Or you can ask ChatGPT to write you a code snippet.

Once you learn to automate excel with VBA adding buttons etc you will literally look like a God compared to the average Excel user.

Not necessarily. (I can explain by DM if you need). I'm still a bit traumatised.

Years ago I put a process into a mail merge and my manager at the time checked every single letter produced. I really don't think she understood that providing the data was correct, the merge would be fine.

We have that with analytical samples, the sample position gets formatted as hours and minutes because it has a colon in it, so for the last 37 samples on a plate it's wrong: 1:60 becomes 2:00 etc. We spotted it quite quickly but it was only by chance once that we found out our analytical department colleagues had the same issue, but had been correcting it by hand! We showed them how to sort it though.

My old manager didn't know how to send an email to more than one person, we all got cc'd on them

If you don't know you don't know.

A couple of simple " hacks" that probably everyone knows apart from me. Things that are bleeding obvious to people who love spreadsheets. Assume I know nothing other than how to put data in a cell,how to make cells bigger,and how to wrap text because that's about it.

@Hedjwitch I taught myself by watching YouTube videos, there are loads of really good step by step beginner’s guides to take you through the basics.

I use excel all the time. What specifically do you want to know?

I have skipped to the end of this thread as it's very long but hoping that somewhere someone has posted a few simple cheats for Excel and computers generally. I have to ask the young uns in the office to help me with stuff sometimes and it's so embarrassing. I don't know how to make columns add up or use formulae so laugh all you like. At 61 I have a wealth of other skills but spreadsheets aren't one of them.

Of course, but those who do "need" to use excel, because they have used it to make a list of figures, should really think about using it properly. Not just putting a list of figures down and adding them by calculator! If they're not going to make the slightest effort to do it properly, then just write the figures on a sheet of paper and add it up by calculator. In fact, it's worse when you use tech wrong, as the person using the spreadsheet would be justified in assuming the column of figures was added up correctly simply because that's what they'd expect - that's how mistakes happen. It's why HMRC want businesses to use proper accounting/book-keeping software and not spreadsheets because they're seeing lots of spreadsheets that simply aren't worth the paper they're written on because they simply don't add up, yet are being used as the basis for vital things like tax returns!

Talk to me about the to do app? Do you mean the task list?

being pedantic (but I think it's fair given you are criticising someone else's lack of intellectual curiosity) it's probably not a "fair bet" that 20 billion people have wanted to do a specific formula in excel, given that's more than a sixth of all the humans that have ever been alive, ever, and excel has only been around for the last 40 years (and, as per this post, isn't used by everyone even in the UK and other very technologically adapt nations in 2025).

Has it ever occurred to you that some people don't need to use Excel ?
I've never had to use it and I am too old to have been taught at school.

ChatGPT is better for excel queries than Google any day of the week. It gives you one answer that’s usually right first time. You have to wade through a load of shite in Google.

Are you usually that easily shocked?

Well, I'm often shocked when people can't be bothered to do a few seconds research via google etc for pretty simple things. It doesn't take a genius to have an inquisitive mind and apply a bit of common sense to something like a spreadsheet to realise that it does more than allow you to enter a bit of text and a column of figures. Any rational person would know that you won't need to manually add up a list of numbers on the screen - otherwise just what would be the point of the spreadsheet in the first place?

Lots of things, in fact most things in life aren't formally "taught" to us! That's why we have books, leaflets, websites, google, family/friends/experts to ask etc.

I run excel tests in interviews, and it's never about whether the person can actually solve the issue (in fact, if they ever solve everything first go it tells me less than if they need help).

I have four tests, and start at the second level. Depending on how they do, I can go up or down a level.

But the absolutely key thing is seeing how they navigate the system - are they clicking in the cells to look for formula, are they selecting multiple cells, checking for hidden rows etc?

The last woman I gave a job to said, "I can see there's a formula here that's working on these cells but I'm not familiar with it, can I Google it?".

I had a similar moment with a friend who’s been using Excel for years but didn’t know about the SUM function! He would type in all the numbers manually, and I was like, "Wait, you don’t just use the SUM formula?" It blew his mind.

Excel can be pretty powerful once you get the hang of formulas. I showed him how to use basic ones like =SUM(A1:A10), and it saved him so much time! I also learned a cool trick once to show formulas in Excel for troubleshooting purposes sheetcast.com/turbotools/turbo-trace/show-formulas-in-excel — really helpful for checking everything’s working right.

Trouble is that if you don't use a function/equation, you'd need to remember to keep calculating the columns/rows and other calculations every time you changed a figure or added/deleted something, which is a much bigger pain, especially for other users who may not have realised it wasn't all automated!

All you do to add up a column of figures is select the Sum symbol ∑ in the home tab (editing) in the cell underneath the column and highlight the column.

A longer way of doing it is to write =SUM(A1:A10) if the figures are in column A from 1 to 10, or wherever the figures are.

What type of adding up formula is a bit of a pain? Obviously there are some difficult ones to get right but what's tricky about a sum one?

It's got to keep your brain active but does anyone really take the time to add figures in a spreadsheet up in their head? That seems a very unusual thing to do, is your stepson doing this in a work situation?

Putting in formulas to Excel can be a bit of a pain (have had to do it for statistics) and I'd get a calculator and add up the sums. My DSS would do it in his head. My DS, a mathematician, would use Excel or a calculator. We all do things differently. How are you with, for example, Gimp? Not everyone knows how to use everything. Why be shocked? DH prefers a calculator or to manually add (good for the intellect), you don't. That's it, really. YABU

In my old job, the submissions from universities were absolutely shocking! When I spoke to them on the phone it did seem like they were entirely unused to using excel though. Similar with a lot of councils. I suppose they're just used to using their own software packages?

@RampantIvy thanks, I'll take a look at that.

I spent this afternoon working through a spreadsheet completed by prospective partners (mostly universities) in a research grant bid.
Quite simple, put the figures you want to claim in three columns for each year of the grant, and a formula gives the total.

No! - approaches taken included:
type over the total formula, ignore the requirement to split by year.
enter the annual figures, type over the total with a random number.
enter the annual figures, type over the formula with a "number" that includes the commas, so the spreadsheet interprets it as text and doesn't include it in the grant total.
enter the annual figures, delete the total formula and leave the cell blank

these people are bidding to do research, analysing data FFS🙄