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How to Write a Business Letter
Twenty-five years ago, business letters and memos were the go-to forms of written communication in the workplace. Today, most of us hastily type emails and instant messages instead. But the business letter is not dead! Use this more formal approach to present official information – such as contract terms and…
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The Email Tennis Match…Business Communication at its Worst
It happened again. I’m copied on an email and have become part of an email tennis match, watching the emails go back and forth between two colleagues. At this point, no one is winning and the emails are becoming more heated with every exchange. Have you ever sent an email…
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The Guide to Animated Excel Graphs
There are a lot of cool new tools in the latest professional versions of Excel that allow you to add some animation to your charts and graphs. However, with a little help from PowerPoint, you can do some types of animation in almost any version! While animating chart data can…
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Two Ways to Compare Columns in Excel
Did you ever squint at two columns of data and examine them row by row to compare the values? Excel can do all that hard work for you in three different ways. Download CompareColumnsinExcel.xlsx to follow along. Note: All values will appear highlighted on the This Equals That Worksheet, initially.…
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Excel Macro Email
Among the many little-known and perhaps even-less-used hacks one could exploit via Microsoft Office, an Excel macro email can save precious hours on a weekly basis. As a bonus, understanding the nature of these handy little "cheats" provides an incidental beginner's introduction to some very basic principles of coding. This…
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Why OSHA?
It was a nice sunny day in Nebraska as two employees working for a roofing company were putting a tin roof on a barn. They had done this type of work many times before without incident. They had no reason to believe that today would be any different. So as…
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Office Safety Tips
As Margie walks up the office stairs where she works, she has no idea what awaits her. The floor at the top of the stairs has just been mopped and there is no warning sign cautioning her about a slick floor. As she reaches the top of the stairs she…
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June is National Safety Month
It was a beautiful Saturday spring day and Stanley decided to do some tree trimming around the house. This was the first weekend he had off for several months and it felt good to be working in the yard. Not only that, he didn’t have his supervisor breathing down his…
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How to Create a Custom Function in Excel
Excel functions are actually shortcuts to more complex calculations. Like a macro is to a series of steps, a function is to a longer equation. While Excel is packed full of functions, you may find that you have proprietary formulas that you use regularly that would be useful as a…
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Using Excel Conditional Formatting Based on Another Column or Cell
Steps in this article will apply to Excel 2007-2016. Images were taken using Excel 2016. Conditional formatting is a useful Excel feature that can help you quickly scan your data without resorting to complicated filtering or fussy charts. Often, you will use conditional formatting to call attention to cells that…
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