Tag Archives: Shortcuts

Excel 2010: The Watch Window

Data changes result in recalculations of totals which are not always visible, depending on your spreadsheet layout. To keep an eye on how these totals are being affected without dashing around your spreadsheet, collect the important totals into a Watch Window. You can then see the collective effect of your new data from wherever you are in your file.

To add a cell or cells to this window, select the Formula tab, Watch Window, and click the Add Watch button. Select the cell or cells to be watched and click Add. Continue by adding others in the same way.

The Watch Window

Excel 2010: Creating Custom Lists

There are many built in lists in Excel, numerical, date/time, text and numerical, and some text entries for month and day (try typing Jan in a cell and replicate the sequence down with the bottom right corner of the cell). For sequences that are not immediately available, Excel gives you the option of creating your own customised text lists.

Go to the File tab and select Options. On the Advanced page (tab at the left), scroll down to the General section where you see the Edit Custom Lists button. Click to open the dialog box.

Adding a custom listIf you have a list already in a spreadsheet, select the cells first. Now go to the Custom Lists dialog box and use the Import button to save retyping the entries.