Articles written by: Matthew Goodall

Jan 27, 2021

Secrets of Excel dates and numbers

This information isn’t meant to be ‘secret’ but I find that not a lot of people will tell you this about Excel. If you go back and read (or reread) [...]

Jan 12, 2021

Secrets of Excel dates

It’s not meant to be a secret, but do you know what Excel really stores dates as? I’ll give you a clue, have you ever typed a date into Excel and it [...]

Oct 28, 2020

Create a chart with a secondary axis in Excel 2016

If you have two series of data that are on very different scales you can change your chart to have two sets of axes, one on the left hand side (a primary axis) and one [...]

Sep 21, 2020

How-to: Make dates and currency in Excel show properly in a Word Mail Merge (Part 2)

In my previous blog I talked about one way to make your dates and currency show properly in a Microsoft Word mail merge. This time I’ll be showing you 2 other [...]

May 20, 2021

How-to: Make dates and currency in Excel show properly in a Word Mail Merge (Part 1)

There are three ways to make your dates and currency show properly in a Microsoft Word mail merge I’ll be showing you way number 1 in this blog and the other 2 in a [...]

May 13, 2021

Every Microsoft Word Keyboard Shortcut

I got a lot of great feedback about my list of all the Excel keyboard shortcuts so I decided to reveal my list of ALL the Word keyboard shortcuts. There is an [...]

Mar 17, 2021

Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Every Excel Keyboard Shortcut…on one page! Clients often ask me if there is a keyboard shortcut for a particular action in Microsoft Excel. I’m not going to claim to [...]

Feb 29, 2021

3 Simple Pie Chart Tricks

In Microsoft Excel, here’s some data and a nice pie chart I’ve just made from this data. It’s a good idea when making a pie chart to only choose one row or column of [...]

Feb 22, 2021

Transparent Images in PowerPoint 2013

Here are two useful options to work with transparency of images in PowerPoint 2013. 1. How to make an image’s background transparent This is useful when you want [...]

Feb 08, 2021

Custom number formats in Excel

While Excel has plenty of standard formats for dates and numbers, if these don’t suit what you need, you can make use of custom number formats to display your data [...]

Dec 11, 2020

Fiddly actions with Word tables

Here are 3 quick ways to perform actions that can seem quite tricky but can actually be done fairly easily. 1. Make all the columns the same width Say you make a [...]

Nov 23, 2020

Ever typed a date into Excel and it turned into a number?

Before I explain why Excel might turn a date into a number I need to discuss how Excel stores data. When you type information into a cell in Excel, the program tries [...]

Nov 10, 2020

I wasn't meant to send that!

Recall a message in Outlook We've all done it before, we've clicked on Send before proofreading one of our emails, forgotten to upload an attachment into the [...]

Nov 03, 2020

Microsoft Word: Make an Exclusion Dictionary

Previously, we’ve talked about adding extra words to a ‘custom dictionary’ so that the spellchecker of Microsoft Word marks them as correct. But what about when you are [...]

Sep 24, 2020

No need for meeting notes anymore!

OneNote is a program that allows you to keep all your notes in one place, but I find some people in my OneNote courses ask “But why wouldn’t I just use Microsoft [...]

Sep 08, 2020

Do the Quick Step in Outlook

In Outlook, what is a quick step? It is a way to make a common action you perform in Outlook 2010 or 2013 take a single click. It isn’t like a Rule that often happens [...]

Aug 31, 2020

Creating Labels in Microsoft Word

You can create pages of labels using an Excel list and a Microsoft Word mail merge. Start in a blank document in Microsoft Word and click on the Mailings [...]

Aug 31, 2020

Creating Labels in Microsoft Word

You can create pages of labels using an Excel list and a Microsoft Word mail merge. Start in a blank document in Microsoft Word and click on the Mailings [...]

Aug 11, 2020

Spellcheck and custom dictionaries in Microsoft Word

Almost everyone who uses Microsoft Word has used spellcheck to fix spelling mistakes in their documents. However, when spellchecking a document you have several choices [...]

Jul 23, 2020

Creating a chart with a secondary axis

Here is how to show two different types of information on the same chart; especially if the two types of information are on different scales (one set of information is a [...]

Jul 13, 2020

Selecting Text in Microsoft Word

Before we do anything to the text we’ve written in Microsoft Word, such as formatting or copy and paste, we first have to select the text, or as some people say, [...]

Jun 22, 2020

Archiving old emails in Outlook

Quite a few people at my work seem to have trouble with archiving their emails. They get a tech person to set up archiving and then when something goes wrong, they can’t [...]

Jun 02, 2021

Creating Quick Parts in Microsoft Word

Quick Parts are a type of building block in Microsoft Word that allow you to insert a ‘standard clunk’ into your Word documents. They are great for ‘bits of a document’ [...]

May 18, 2021

Find a filter result without filtering in Excel

You may remember a previous blog post of mine about advanced filters previously. I recently had a student in one of our Excel Courses who was interested in filtering and [...]

Apr 28, 2021

Outlook rules rule!

Rules in Microsoft Outlook are a way to automatically manage emails coming into your inbox. The most common type of rule are those that move certain emails to folders [...]

Mar 06, 2021

The Best Excel Keyboard Shortcut

OK, I may be exaggerating slightly with the title because the ‘best’ keyboard shortcuts are really the ones we each individually use the most, and you may do different [...]

Feb 12, 2021

Manage emails in Outlook using the 4 Ds

In an earlier blog post, I talked about some of the ways to manage the flood of emails in Microsoft Outlook that we all seem to get these days. I spoke about Flags and [...]

Feb 06, 2021

Introduction to transitions and animations in PowerPoint 2010/13

Today, I’m going to talk about two features of Microsoft PowerPoint that really make PowerPoint a distinctive part of the Office suite - transitions and animations. Both [...]

Jan 27, 2021

Three really handy Excel keyboard shortcuts

Here are three keyboard shortcuts I find really handy in Microsoft Excel. These shortcuts each do something very useful they and are often hard to achieve using the [...]

Jan 13, 2021

Using Outlook flags and categories to manage emails

Here are two quick tips for managing emails in Microsoft Outlook. I’m not going to include ‘folders’ as one of the these tips even though they are a useful option for [...]

Jan 09, 2021

Setting up Outlook 2013 to suit your personal needs

When you move to a new version of Outlook, such as Outlook 2013, some of the programs settings and how the screen looks may change. Instead of just ‘putting up with’ [...]

Dec 12, 2020

Two ways to put a sticky note on your desktop

If you don’t have a pad of post-it notes on your desk but you need to make a quick note, you can create an onscreen reminder in a couple of ways. 1. Use Windows 7’s [...]

Nov 24, 2020

Comparing and combining two lists using VLOOKUPs

You may remember that in my last blog post, I talked about how to do a VLOOKUP in Microsoft Excel. Today, we are going to use VLOOKUPS to compare and combine two lists [...]

Nov 14, 2020

Charts that aren't charts

In Microsoft Excel, there are a couple of ways to create a 'chart that isn't a chart.' Each produces a graphical representation of data, but using different [...]

Oct 31, 2020

Doing a VLOOKUP that finds exactly what you want

A VLOOKUP in Microsoft Excel looks up and finds a piece of information in a list, a list like the one below: The V in VLOOKUP stands for vertical because you are [...]

Oct 14, 2020

3 easy ways to send a standard e-mail in Outlook

I was speaking with a Learning Solutions Advisor, Sean, at New Horizons about being able to efficiently respond to his clients through email. While discussing, I came up [...]

Sep 04, 2020

Create an advanced filter in Excel

Filtering is a common task in Microsoft Excel and the normal filtering (the ‘autofilter’) can do quite a lot of what you will need. However, there are some filters that [...]

Sep 01, 2020

Heading styles in Microsoft Word

Recently, one of the students in a Microsoft Word training course asked me whether it was a good idea to use the existing Heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2 Heading 3, [...]

Jul 10, 2020

Sync document properties in SharePoint and Word

It’s common to store Word documents in a SharePoint library. If that library has "versioning" turned on, then you may want to display the version number (or other [...]

May 26, 2021

VBA Excel: Finding the last row of a worksheet (Part 2)

In my last blog post, VBA Excel: Finding the last row of a worksheet (Part 1), I explained how to use the control arrows to find the last row of a worksheet in VBA [...]

May 15, 2021

VBA Excel: Finding the last row of a worksheet (Part 1)

When creating macros in Microsoft Excel, you often want to find the last row of data in a worksheet to be able to choose the correct area so the macro can do things with [...]

Feb 24, 2021

Saving a file with a unique name in Excel VBA

When creating macros in Excel (or another Office application), you often want to have the macro save the file of results as part of the macro. There are two main issues [...]

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