your favourite ms office process or tool

[StealthPolarBear]

I expect this thread to run to thousands of posts :)

Access compact and repair. Lovely.

ctrl+arrow up or down
and crtl+shift+arrow up or down

Takes you to top or bottom of a column, or selects from top to bottom
None of that tedious click and drag down to the bottom of a long table

Pivot tables - I can do and used them a bit in my old job, but I can't really describe what they do, anyone got a good explanation? I was trying to explain to DP and just came up with 'well they just kind of summarise the data'. Also, I found the old pivot table wizard way easier to use than the new one.

ahandbag What are spark lines? They sounds like something i need in my life!!

Pivot tables my life is complete when I use a Pivot table to analyse a bit of MI.

That's how I'd describe pivot tables...summarising data but also parts of data and by any field you like.

And agree, I also preferred old pivot wizard.

Spark lines are....wait for it.... mini little dinky graphs you can insert into a cell at the end of a line of data that shows that data, so if you have sales by month per sales manager or product, it shows mini little graphical views so you can see the overall trends now tell me that isn't cool!

CNTL SHIFT ENTER is some I only use for formulas my boss produces...it puts odd squiggly brackets around the formula, which can sometimes run to 3 lines long....more like a paragraph than a formula.

My boss = the grand master of excel geekery!

Ooh, I love a good pivot table. And that feeling when you find a formula that will save you or a colleague loads of time.

I recently found Ctrl-G. I use it to select all the blanks in my data and fill them in with the entry in the cell above.

(Ctrl-G, click Special, select Blanks. Type = then hit the up arrow. Ctrl-Enter.
All blanks will be filled in with the entry in the cell above.

I need to get a life.

Wow looks like I killed that one!

Sorry, hve been fighting with word all afternoon :)

SUMIF, COUNT IF and COUNTIFS and SUMIFS (MS2010 only). I often have to create monthly invoices based on weekly timesheets completed by my team.

So... SUMIFS will do 'count this column if that column = Fred Smith AND this other column = May 2012 AND this other column = my project code'. Brilliant.

I taught myself how to do a macro the other day. Had to write a bit of code and everything

Oh, and CTRL+TAB is a lifesaver. Means I can flick between windows when working without having to use the mouse.

Oops I mean ALT+TAB

Oh yes - I love the snipping tool in Windows and a nifty little programme called zapgrabber which is similar.

I also love digital post-it notes. I have my screen at work covered in them

Index and match in excel. It's basically a way to simultaneously do a h and v lookup. Anything excel really, I was my team trainer on it and use it for everything.

The random number generator in excel, and the two default fonts in the new version of Office - they are so sleek and pretty, I love them.

I love to use "filter" in Excel.

Ca, what is so good about conditional formatting in 2010? I use it quite a lot and so would love to know.

Oh and indirect() seems to be something I'm using more and more

feeling slightly embarrassed now that everybody is filtering & formatting whilst I am cutting things up and sticking things down like I am in nursery.

Perhaps I ought to get a proper job.

Lol depends what you need it for - its meant to make your life easier, not be used for its own sake

Format Painter - I just love it. I do a lot of editing of old/other peoples documents and use it all the time to get everything consistent.

Ctrl F for finding things

Freeze panes for scanning about in big spreadsheets

Absolutely bloody hate the automatic section numbering in Word, it's ok until you want to insert a new section in a document several Word versions old, then seems to be a complete lottery as to whether it all works perfectly or it creates absolute chaos.

Also hate the automatic double line spacing in Word 2010

I also love the different options for pasting now, ie with or without formatting etc, but am so used to just doing ctrl-v that I am always having to undo and right click.

And I like the clipboard if you are doing lots of cutting and pasting it's really handy having all your cuts down the side to choose from.

I don't like the Help function much anymore which very much tends to send you off to search the internet instead of navigating through logical help menus, although the F1 whilst hovering feature is useful.

yes agree about the Help, I just don't use it any more, get better results from googling, whereas before it was instant and did seem relevant

oh and I took ages to discover that if you single click on format painter it applies the formatting to the next item, if you double click it keeps going until you esc out of it. Sure everyone else knew about the double click but I had to mention as I wish I'd known ages ago!

my compact and repair didn't actually work though :( Or rather didn't fix the problem. Sure I've had good things from it in the past though

Loving new IFERROR in excel 2010. I used to spend my life typing if(iserror(hugely long and complex formula),0,hugely long and complex formula), but IFERROR makes it so much less painful.

And new special "paste values and formats simultaneously" button has been a very long time coming, and is extremely welcome.

My favourite is in excel. In a cell hold down ctrl and press : and it will enter today's date... Very useful when you can't remember the date.

ooh, will remember iferror
why can't they do an ifna as well - what a pain that is!!