Published July 24, 2026 at 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Tony Phillips has a degree in Hispanic Studies and Linguistics. He is also an expert Microsoft Office user. Before joining How-to Geek, in January 2024 he was a data manager and document creator. He also loves creating spreadsheets and other documents during his free time. Tony
is an academic proofreader with experience in editing and formatting more than 3 million words, including personal statements, references letters, research proposal, and dissertations.
Tony wrote and formatted documents, such as contracts, wills and powers of attorney, for law firms before joining How-To Geek. Tony
is a Microsoft Office nut! Tony will create spreadsheets for any excuse, adding complex formulas to them and discovering new methods to manipulate data. Also, he takes great pride in creating Word documents with a professional look. In the UK, he worked for a school as a data administrator and has many years’ experience using Microsoft PowerPoint in classrooms. His expertise in Microsoft Office allows him to solve problems quickly.
Tony, who is also a dog lover and owner, loves football, gardening, golfing, and astrophotography. Spending a few minutes this weekend to try out the best Excel tools could help you save hours of time in the coming weeks. The five features are designed to solve common problems like scrolling large workbooks, cleaning pasted data and finding problematic cells. You can use them on Monday.
You can navigate through large books by using the name box
Stop scrolling down thousands of columns and rows
Many Excel users treat the Name Box on the upper left corner of the grid as nothing more than a status indicator. It is actually a navigation tool that allows you to quickly move between large files. You can skip directly to your desired cell by using
instead of moving a small scrollbar past the row 50,000 and inevitably missing it. This is a great time saver when you want to jump from one worksheet to another or select multiple rows.
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Click in the name box located to the left side of the formula bar.
Press enterafter typing your target cell coordinate, for example A650.
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To select an entire area, type a range reference like D2:J100. Then press enter. Click on the drop-down arrow in order to go directly to a table or range named. Name Boxes can be created by using the Name Box.
Click the Name Boxand type in a name. The drop-down list allows you to jump directly back to the selected location.
You may not have the patience or time to build summary views from scratch. Analyze Data scans the active sheet to generate summaries, charts and other visualizations.
It is particularly useful when inheriting a spreadsheet that has thousands of columns and you need to quickly spot trends. Click anywhere in your table of data when you open your spreadsheet
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. Click on Analyze Data in the far right corner of the Ribbon. This will depend on which version of Excel you are using.
- Checkgenerated PivotTables and charts. Click Incorporateto insert a table or chart into your workbook.
Type a plain English prompt in the search bar at the top to find what you are looking for.
For example, “top sales by region” and “average cost by month.”
Microsoft 365 Personal.
Ctrl+Shift+V is a shortcut that allows you to copy values into Excel without any unwanted formatting.
When pasting data using Ctrl+V, the results are often mismatched fonts and background colors.
You can paste the values only by using Ctrl+Shift+V. This saves you time from having to reformat the data. The shortcut
fixes everyday annoyances such as pasting from an email without adding grey boxes to the background, or copying from another worksheet without including unwanted calculations. Try pasting data two times: Once normally and then using the shortcut that only copies values:
Paste the data once, once with the normal shortcut, and again using the value-only one:
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Copy your data or textby using Ctrl+C.
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Select your destination cell in Excel by clicking on Ctrl+C.
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Press ctrl+vfirst to see the normal pasted data into Excel.
The names in the example are in a small font and wrap over two lines. They also have extra space that I do not want on my spreadsheet. After pressing ctrl+Z, you can press ctrl+shift+v in order to only paste the values.
You can use the Go To Special feature to locate problematic cells on your worksheet
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It can be a tedious task to manually search through tens of thousands of cells. Go To Special finds all the cells in your spreadsheet and instantly selects them. This turns a manual audit into an instant one. Select the cells you wish Excel to examine before opening Go To Special. You can click on a cell in order to search your entire worksheet or you can highlight an area if only a part of the data is what you are looking for.
Click and press
or click Find & select> Go To Special
. Click special on the bottom of the window if you have pressed . Select the categories that you wish to exclude, for example, Formulas, Constants or data validation cells. Clicking Ok selects all matching cells on the sheet, or in your range of choice. Then you can apply the same format to them all.
Press enter if you want to go through the cells one-by-one, or press ctrl+enter if your goal is to fill each cell simultaneously.
View two different parts of a file in a separate window
Comparing distant sheets is possible without scrolling constantly backwards
The process of cross-checking the numbers in different tabs and rows can be time-consuming and lead to mistakes. By opening a new window in your current file, you can view multiple areas simultaneously without having to open separate copies.
With this setup, you can perform tasks such as comparing the summary sheet with raw data. The primary tab can be kept visible, while you scroll, filter, and check formula entries across the raw data sheets. Open the tab viewin the worksheet you want to examine.
To launch the synchronized version of your document, click [NewWindow. Click New Windowto launch a synchronized view of your document. Horizontal
stacks windows on top of each other. Vertical aligns the windows in a vertical line, making it easier to compare data. Cascade (19459023) layers windows to make it easier for you to switch from one window into another.
If you make changes to your data, they will be automatically updatedin all open views. Close any additional windows when you are finished . This window is your usual workbook view.
There are no limitations to the number of views you can have. Click Create New Window from the view button to create a synchronized version.
Continue optimizing your Excel work flow
After you have tested these tips for saving time, explore the little-known Excel functions you may not yet be aware of.
These tools will help you save time by allowing you to spend less time looking through spreadsheets, and more time using Excel’s features.
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