When you make periodic payments on a loan or mortgage, a certain part of each payment goes towards the interest and the remainder is applied to the loan principal. In this tutorial, we will look at how to use the PPMT function to calculate the principal portion of the payment. Continue reading
Before you borrow money it's good to know how a loan works. Thanks to the Excel financial functions such as PMT, PPMT and IPMT, computing periodic payments for a loan is easy. In this tutorial, we will have a closer look at the PMT function. Continue reading
In statistics, there exist many different forecasting techniques and some of these techniques are already implemented in Excel. This tutorial will teach you how to forecast in Excel based on historical data and may help you save money on specialized forecasting software. Continue reading
Flash Fill is one of the most amazing features of Excel. It grabs a tedious task that would take hours to be performed manually and executes it automatically in a flash. Continue reading
As simple as it seems, Excel cell reference confuses many users. How is a cell address defined in Excel? What is an absolute and relative reference and when each should be used? In this tutorial, you will find answers to these and many more questions. Continue reading
One of the most useful features of Excel tables are structured references. When you have just stumbled upon a special syntax for referencing tables, it may look boring and confusing, but after experimenting a bit you will surely see how useful and cool this feature is. Continue reading
When doing correlation analysis in Excel, in most cases you will deal with the Pearson correlation. But when the underlying assumptions of the Pearson correlation (continuous variables, linearity, and normality) are not met, you can do the Spearman rank correlation instead of Pearson's. Continue reading
Empty cells are not bad if you are intentionally leaving them in right places for aesthetic reasons. But blank cells in wrong places are certainly undesirable. Luckily, there is a relatively easy way to remove blanks in Excel. Continue reading
The prospect of reviewing all the columns in your worksheet and removing the empty ones manually is definitely something you'd want to avoid. Luckily, Microsoft Excel provides a great lot of different features, and by using those features in creative ways you can cope with almost any task. Continue reading
IF is one of the most popular Excel functions and very useful on its own. Combined with the logical functions such as AND, OR, and NOT, the IF function has even more value because it allows you to test multiple conditions in desired combinations. Continue reading
Subtraction is one of the four basic arithmetic operations, and every primary school pupil knows that to subtract one number from another you use the minus sign. This good old method also works for subtracting numbers and cells in Excel. Continue reading
Some Excel users prefer organizing data vertically in columns while others choose horizontal arrangement in rows. In situations when you need to quickly change the orientation of a given range, TRANSPOSE is the function to use. Continue reading
In this tutorial, intended for beginners, we will touch only lightly on theory and calculations behind the Excel LINEST function. Our main focus will be on providing you with a formula that simply works and which you can easily customize for your data. Continue reading
Sometimes values in your Excel worksheets look like numbers, but they don't add up, don't multiply and produce errors in formulas. A common reason for this is numbers formatted as text. This tutorial will teach you how to convert numeric strings to actual numbers. Continue reading
Normally, Microsoft Excel recognizes numbers stored as text and converts them to the numerical format automatically. However, if the data is in a format that Excel cannot recognize, numeric values can be left as text making calculations impossible. Continue reading
One of the fundamental things we know about numbers is that they can be positive and negative. But sometimes you may need to use only positive numbers, and that's where the absolute value comes in handy. Continue reading
CHOOSE is one of those Excel functions that may not look useful on their own, but combined with other functions give a number of awesome benefits. At the most basic level, you use the CHOOSE function to get a value from a list by specifying the position of that value. Continue reading
Are you looking to calculate the expiration date that is exactly 90 days from now? Or you need to know the date that occurred 60 days before today? Whatever your task is, this tutorial will teach you how to make your own date calculator in Excel in under 5 minutes. Continue reading
As everyone knows, Excel COUNTIF function is designed to count cells based on just one criterion while COUNTIFS evaluates multiple criteria with AND logic. But what if your task requires OR logic – when several conditions are provided, any one can match to be included in the count? Continue reading
Are you wondering how many days are between two dates? Maybe, you need to know the number of days between today and some specific date in the past or future? Or, you just want to count working days between two dates? Whatever your task is, one of the below examples will certainly provide the solution. Continue reading
Excel VLOOKUP and IFERROR - these two functions may be pretty hard to understand separately, let alone when they are combined. In this article, you will find a few easy-to-follow examples that address common uses and clearly illustrate the formula logic. Continue reading
Whilst VLOOKUP and IF functions are useful on their own, together they deliver even more valuable experiences. Today, we will be looking at a few simple examples that will show you how to Vlookup with If condition in Excel. Continue reading
It is a very common situation in Excel that your worksheet contains a column of full names, and you want to split the first and last names into separate columns. The task can be accomplished in three different ways - by using the Text to Columns feature, formulas, and Split Names tool. Continue reading
To extract number from string in Excel, it'd take a little ingenuity, a bit of patience, and a bunch of different functions nested into each other. Or, you can run the Extract tool and have the job done with a mouse click. Continue reading
Although there is no such thing as Substring function in Excel, there exist three Text functions to extract text of a given length from a cell. Additionally, there are FIND and SEARCH functions to get a substring before or after a specific character. Continue reading
As with other basic math operations, Microsoft Excel provides several ways to divide numbers and cells. Which one to use depends on your personal preferences and a particular task you need to solve. Continue reading
In our previous tutorial, we were looking at Excel If contains formulas that return some value to another column if the target cell contains a specific value. Aside from that, what else can you do if a cell contains certain text or number? Continue reading
One of the most common tasks in Excel is checking whether a cell contains a value of interest. What kind of value can that be? Just any text or number, specific text, or any value at all (not empty cell). Continue reading
As with all basic arithmetic operations, there is more than one way to multiply columns in Excel. This tutorial will show you a few possible solutions so you can choose the one that works best for you. Continue reading
How can we change the case of the first letter from lower to upper in Excel cells? Do we have to type each character manually into every cell? Not anymore! Today I will share three methods of capitalizing first letters in your table. Continue reading