Microsoft Excel is one of the most useful tools that you can take advantage of for your business. It can track expenses, help you make sense of your financials, and so much more. However, errors can cause issues when it comes to achieving the results you desire.
Let’s explore common Excel errors so that you can avoid them in the future.
- Opening Multiple Workbooks
Make sure that when you open a new workbook, it is immediately saved! Otherwise, you will have two identical documents with different names, because Excel saves by default as you type. Make sure you keep this in mind when using Excel for business.
- Excel Data Formatting Issue: Conditional Formatting
Excel’s conditional formatting is a very helpful feature that lets users highlight cells with certain values, colors, and font styles depending on the rules that have been set up.
However, these do not update automatically when other cells in the same column or row change value. A workaround is to place the cursor in the cell you want to update, press F2, select before or after formula based on your preference, type an equal sign (=), then click on the cell with the updated value. The conditional formatting rules should then update accordingly.
- Copying Formulas
Don’t copy formulas while they are still calculating. If you copy a formula with an error in it, the error will be copied to other cells as well.
This may result in incorrect or undesired results.
- Formatting Issue: Fonts and Colors
Font sizes and colors do not remain when copied from one cell to another in a table.
To keep your formatting intact when copying, click on the table, then go to the “Home” ribbon and click on the “Alignment” tab. Check the box that says “Merge cells.” This way, when you copy your data, it will retain its original format without losing any of its colors or fonts.
- Center Across Selection
You can use Excel’s center align function to horizontally center text across several cells. However, if there are different alignments within this set of cells, Excel will only center the leftmost values. You can check out this resource to learn how to write Excel file in C#.
- Not Saving Before Closing
Excel is known to crash quite often, so it’s best to save your work frequently. If you close without saving, all progress since the last save will be lost. Unfortunately, having Excel crash could prevent you from saving data before it closes. So, it’s highly recommended to save on a regular basis.
- Deleting Rows/columns Without a Backup
If you delete a row or column while it’s filled with data, the cell references in other rows or columns may change.
This can cause your formulas to give unexpected results and affect the integrity of your workbook. Before deleting any rows or columns, make sure to create a backup.
Avoiding Common Excel Errors Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult
Protecting Excel data is crucial. The above information will help ensure that you are able to achieve the results that you desire. Otherwise, these common Excel errors could hold you back in the future.
You can check out the rest of our blog for other useful information about business practices you should incorporate.
