Even if you use Microsoft Excel regularly, there's a fair chance you might not be getting as much out of it as you can. Improve your Excel efficiency and proficiency with these basic shortcuts and functions that absolutely everyone needs to know.

Microsoft Excel is packed with useful data management features that don't see a lot of use, like pivot tables, index and match, and conditional formatting. If you're just using excel to sum and chart columns, this graphic can show you some other tools to help you become the spreadsheet ninja you always wanted to be.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of American teenagers compete to be the best at Word, Excel and PowerPoint and win up to $US3000 ($3907) in the Microsoft Office Specialist US National Championship. It's organised by Certiport, a testing company that offers certifications in software such as MS Office, AutoCAD and Adobe Creative Suite. We asked this year's first-place winners for their best Office tips.

Microsoft Excel is perhaps the world's most popular spreadsheet software, so proving your proficiency with it is a smart way to boost your chances of getting your resume noticed. The Microsoft Excel Specialist Certification Bundle will help you do just that as you master its essential tricks and formulas and prepare to ace several certification exams.

There are some excellent time-tracking apps out there, but if you prefer the comfort of good old Microsoft Excel, here's some good news. A Redditor made an Excel-based to-do list with built-in time tracking, and the template is free to download.

One of the promises heralded by software makers when they started offering subscription software was that new features would be added as they were developed rather than bundled up into monolithic releases every few years. Microsoft Excel has received a much-wanted new feature - co-authoring .

Web/Android: If you use an online app like Google Docs then you've long been accustomed to having multiple people collaborate on the same document or spreadsheet at once. Microsoft Excel is finally taking a step into this brave new world of simultaneous editing and adding the ability to co-author spreadsheets.

This week, the world celebrated Spreadsheet Day, AKA the most boring holiday devised by humankind. But wait! If you hate spreadsheets and everything they stand for, it probably means you don't know how to use them properly. Here are our most useful spreadsheet hacks for Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets; suitable for novices and experts alike.

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If you've mastered the basics of Microsoft Excel and you're looking to boost your spreadsheet skills, this visual guide explains some useful tips and shortcuts you may not have tried.

Data and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets go hand in hand. Certainly, data analysts have a love affair with Excel, but other people in their organisations may not be so keen on it. While spreadsheets are useful for documenting data on business performance, they may alienate a number of employees from knowing what's going on within their companies. Here's why this matter.

Last week, we walked you through how to get started quickly with, make the most of, and master every app in Microsoft Office. Maybe you missed one, or want a quick guide to all of them. Well, here you go.

Many of us live and die by our spreadsheets, but every true spreadsheet ninja has to start somewhere. These helpful, Excel shortcuts can help you save time and get more done. From highlighting every cell at once to quickly copying formulas, they're a refresher for experts and worth remembering for beginners.

Spreadsheets are a nerd's data-driven dream. For most regular people, though, they're a complicated mess. Fortunately, they don't need to be. Here's how to bend data to your will with Microsoft Excel 2016.

Software engineer Chandoo shares some Excel conditional formatting tricks that make for good-looking and useful spreadsheets, like a Gantt chart. Conditional formatting makes a cell look a certain way based on its contents. A Gantt chart maps out deadlines within a project. Chandoo's Excel Gantt chart combines a calendar and to-do list to display what has to be completed when in a good-looking table layout. If you don't want to set up the sheet yourself, download an Excel Gantt chart template here. Here's more on using conditional formatting in your spreadsheets.

As you might have seen in our comments, our readers love them some Pivot Tables, an aggregation tool that can show your spreadsheet data any way you tell it to. If you've felt left off of the data-wrangling bandwagon, the Productivity Portfolio blog has a guide walkthrough explaining the benefits and features of the tables and setting up a simple voting analysis table for an example. Better yet, the post includes a printable PDF for your do-this-when-I-get-home convenience. For more Excel 2007 knowledge, try out PP's equally helpful guide to AutoFilter. Learn to use Pivot Tables in Excel 2007 to Organize Data

Windows only: Donationware Excel plug-in Excel Password Remover strips the password protection from Excel workbooks and spreadsheets so that next time you're working late and your co-worker locked you out of a spreadsheet you need access to, you won't be left in the dark. The plug-in adds Unprotect workbook and Unprotect sheet options to Excel's Tools menu, and using it is as simple as selecting an option when you're locked out. The add-in won't necessarily work in every instance, but as a last resort it's a great utility to have on hand. Excel Password Remover is donationware, Windows only. A pro, non-nagware version is available for $25.
Excel Password Remover