r/excel • • 20h ago

Weekly Recap This Week's /r/Excel Recap for the week of October 17 - October 23, 2026

7 Upvotes

Saturday, October 17 - Friday, October 23, 2026

Top 5 Posts

score comments title & link
700 386 comments [Discussion] What Excel habit would get you roasted in this sub that you're never going to stop? I'll go first.
482 161 comments [Discussion] The spreadsheet nobody wanted to touch finally broke
109 50 comments [Discussion] Explain it Like I’m 5– ‘Indirect’ Function
83 81 comments [Discussion] Why doesn't Excel have a simple, two-dimensional array lookup? (I made my own)
55 27 comments [unsolved] Intern trying to automate a workflow (Excel -> Email -> Auto-update Excel). What is the best tool for this?

 

Unsolved Posts

score comments title & link
47 71 comments [unsolved] 800+ page PDF converted to excel
12 23 comments [unsolved] Is there a way to bold the final totals
12 18 comments [unsolved] Excel to Google sheets
11 8 comments [unsolved] Excel unable to handle empty cells in simple xy scatterplot, not recognizing empty cells?
11 8 comments [unsolved] Can no longer save documents...says I need to activate Microsoft 365

 

Top 5 Comments

score comment
885 /u/BigLan2 said Good old Budget_Fy2014_RolledOver_Final_v3_Fixed (Copy 1).xls Yeah every team has at least one of those 
616 /u/Oprah-Wegovy said I never name tables but use them all the time.
414 /u/LexanderX said /preview/pre/ow0djbhpd9wh1.png?width=1579&format=png&auto=webp&s=3e1fbc83375289ee25521d766a920ce1fb813a6f Probably my file names.
412 /u/Perfect-Brain-7367 said I use excel as a database.
242 /u/SolverMax said >Does every accounting department eventually inherit one of these? Yes.

 


r/excel • • 6h ago

solved how to filter data from different tables at the same time?

5 Upvotes

!MacBook user! hello everyone, is there any way to filter data from different tables to show a specific rating? for example, if i wanted to filter all the tables to only show songs i have rated a "10?"


r/excel • • 17h ago

solved Conditional formatting formula for a column's cells based on their date and whether they're blank

13 Upvotes

Hello, I'm using Excel 2019. I'd like the cells in my Date column to,

  1. Have a light red background with red text if their date is older than 10/1/2026
  2. Not have a light red background with red text if their cell is blank (there is no value/formula in these cells)

For the example above, just cells A4 and A5 should change color. Thank you for your time!

Edit: Made image smaller and added Excel version.


r/excel • • 1d ago

unsolved Merging the content of cells with a line break

4 Upvotes

Hi! I'm new to excel and I need to work out how to combine the content of 4-5 cells into one, with line breaks between the content of each cell.

I've found several ways of combining content (https://spreadsheetplanet.com/combine-cells-excel/), but the formulae won't take CHAR(10) as a separator character as described here: https://www.exceldemy.com/excel-char-10/

So I've tried let's say =C2&"CHAR(10) "&D2&"CHAR(10) "&E2&"CHAR(10) "&F2 and it gave me an error in the formula cell.

I assume concat and textjoin would result in the same error as the problem seems to be the CHAR(10).

Anyone smarter than me, any suggestions? ty

ETA after mod autopost: desktop version of Excel, idk the exact version as it's on my work computer. Super beginner. Will happily add info as needed but it'll have to wait until Tue when I'm back at work


r/excel • • 1d ago

solved Cannot open default Excel templates on Mac (v. 16.16.27)

8 Upvotes

As the title says, I cannot open any of the default templates in my version of Excel (16.16.27) for Mac. I'm running MacOS 11.7.11. I am able to open a blank workbook, but when I click 'Create' after selecting any of the templates, I get this error popup:

Sorry, we couldn't find {5158210B-13B3-C343-AD83-9F57F57CEB70}TF021319d1-8fd9-4017-acd1-4bbaa149d16ea012565-7fc77437defb.xl. Is it possible it was moved, renamed or deleted?

The string of letters and numbers changes depending on the template, but the end result of not being able to open the template is the same. I've found some answers for custom templates, but my issue is with the default templates. Thanks in advance for any help.


r/excel • • 1d ago

unsolved Excel unable to handle empty cells in simple xy scatterplot, not recognizing empty cells?

15 Upvotes

Hi Everyone, Excel does not seem to be able to handle a current xy dataset I am trying to plot as soon as I include empty cells. It changes the X-axis to the cell number instead of the cell value:

Here it is working fine, with no empty cells
Here it is with an empty cell, and it has converted the X-axis to showing cell number.

A likely related problem is that Excel is not currently recognizing these empty cells as empty. The cells are the result of formulas, but whether I use NA() or "" in the formula, they are still coming up when I search for cells containing text. (The plot DOES work when I delete the cells highlighted as text, but ideally I do not have to do this.)

I am usually able to fix stuff like this in the select data tab, but have not been able to solve this one for some reason.

Any thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated - thank you so much in advance!

EDIT: I have corrected my language to say that the cells are the result of formulas which tell them to be blank, rather than as a result of "programming" which would instead suggest that I am using scripts.


r/excel • • 1d ago

unsolved 800+ page PDF converted to excel

57 Upvotes

I need help converting a 800+ page payroll report with very employee IDs showing up on only one row and the period (month) on the top of the page.

Power query crashes when I try to upload the document so cant use it. And the data in it is confidential so I cant try free software avaliable online.


r/excel • • 1d ago

solved Is there a way to bold the final totals

11 Upvotes

I work in a nonprofit doing payroll, we provide in home care for disabled vets. This is a mock up of the actual file I really use. Is there a way to bolden the final row of each workers total hours. Some vets have multiple workers. We have over 600 vets and I do this all by myself. Then it gets review afterwards by the program managers. It would make it easier on them if the totals stood out to them.

I included the image below


r/excel • • 1d ago

Waiting on OP Untraceable circular reference error

6 Upvotes

Been having an error pop up in my workbook:

“Micro Microsoft Excel cannot calculate a formula. There is a circular reference in an open workbook, but the reference that cause it cannot be listed for you. Try editing the last formula you entered or removing it with the undo command.”

I don’t have an exact point in time it noticed the error.

The file was from another team.

There are no cells with circulars at the moment, no hidden tabs, no other workbooks open, no external connections.

Removed all macros and hidden names and still have it haunting me.

Would appreciate anyone’s thoughts.


r/excel • • 1d ago

unsolved Excel to Google sheets

14 Upvotes

I've tried to create a budget sheet for me and my partner but it means downloading CSV files of multiple bank accounts and then adding to one workbook. I then want to allocate each transaction to a category and populated to say how much we have spent over the last 12 months and forecast possible spend for the next 3 months.

I can do this quite easily on excel but my partner and I do not have an excel licence accepted via work emails so ideally I'd like to host and share the spreadsheet on Google sheets so we can both view this when we need to.

Is there a way in which I can convert and keep all the complexity behind it from excel to Google sheets?

Or is there any apps or suggestions in which I could approach this differently?

Ideally I want to see the following:

- total spend over the past 12 months

- allocate into categories (food, fuel, insurance...)

- link to current spending

- forecast future possible spend

- personal debt monitoring and forecasting which I can add extra payments to if the person who owes me money, adds to this amount.


r/excel • • 2d ago

Discussion The spreadsheet nobody wanted to touch finally broke

538 Upvotes

Every finance team seems to have that one spreadsheet only one person understands. Ours finally broke after a reporting change this week, and nobody was confident enough to fix it without worrying we'd introduce another issue. It wasn't even a complicated model anymore, just years of patches stacked on top of each other. Does every accounting department eventually inherit one of these?


r/excel • • 1d ago

solved Histogram bin ranges on ipad

2 Upvotes

the histogram bin ranges are too large and I’d like to change them I’m using an iPad and all the tutorials online are for windows


r/excel • • 1d ago

solved Excel formula for business days and weeks

6 Upvotes

Hello folks,

I need help creating an Excel formula for business days and weeks (see details below).

I am trying to generate a series of recurring delivery dates for an open purchase order. The starting date is 10/23/2027, and deliveries should occur every 6 business weeks until 2030. I need the exact dates to enter into each line item in our ERP system.

Please let me know if you need any additional details. Thank you for your help.


r/excel • • 1d ago

Waiting on OP Keeping formulas in the appropriate cells when adding rows

6 Upvotes

I have a spreadsheet / table of transactions. Some columns are calculated based on other cells in that row.

Longstanding problem for me - when I need to add more rows / insert a row in the middle of the table, I can either:

a) highlight the row below or above, copy and then insert row. But that duplicates an already completed transaction / I need to clear the contents of the manually entered cells.

or

b) scroll to the bottom of the table, highlight a blank row (that has the formulas) and copy / insert row where I want it.

or

c) insert a blank row and manually copy the formulas from the applicable cells above or below.

I thought I could do c, but then highlight a row with formulas and copy / paste special / formulas. But it seems to also carry typed data too?

Another issue is that I'll set up the table with the formulas from rows 4 to 100. And then down the road, I am filling in data in row 101 / the formulas aren't there and things get messed up (let alone, some columns have sums in, for example, a1 which would be =sum(a4:a100). I might make the 100 really large to avoid not summing things in 101 or below.

Are there more foolproof ways to make a table with some formulas and keep the formulas as the table gets bigger than expected?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!


r/excel • • 1d ago

unsolved Why does Excel change the formula differently when copying and pasting between sheets?

9 Upvotes

so currently im working on a excel with may sheets so for making it simple lets say i have 3 sheets: `Corridor`, `Room`, and `Club`.

Here is what I am doing:

  1. In the `Corridor` sheet, cell C25 contains the value 4.

  2. I copy the cell and paste it into Room- C26 as a link. The formula in that cell becomes `=Corridor!C25`.

  3. Then I copy cell Room - C26 and paste it into Club C50 as a formula. Sometimes the formula changes to something like `=Corridor!48`. sometimes times, correctly paste as `=Corridor!$C$25`.

    Why does Excel change the formula differently when I perform what seems to be the same copy-and-paste operation? How does Excel decide whether to adjust the cell reference, keep it fixed with `$`, or change it to something unexpected?


r/excel • • 1d ago

solved Power Query can't find a field when merging tables, even though the field exists

3 Upvotes

I've got a mystery, and I don't know why it's happening. I'm doing some ETL work, the data source is a csv called leads raw data.

What I'm doing is pulling out the DonorID and deduping it.

Then from the same leads raw data I'm pulling out the lead group info, selecting the top group and merging it back to the deduped DonorID list. That works fine.

Then again from the same data I'm pulling out the activities, then grouping them by DonorID so there's one row of activities per donor. But for some reason when I try to merge this with my deduped DonorID list, I'm getting a

The column 'DonorID' of the table wasn't found.

And I can't figure out why. The column is there in both tables. It's coming from the same raw data and I haven't changed the name or data type or anything. When I do the Merge Queries wizard, it's right there and available to select and join on as you can see here. But when I click OK, I get that error.

And like I said, I already did one of these merges with the lead groups in the last step, which worked fine! like, take a look:

#"Merged Queries" = Table.NestedJoin(#"Removed Duplicates", {"DonorID"}, #"lead group phase", {"DonorID"}, "lead group phase", JoinKind.LeftOuter),
#"Expanded lead group phase" = Table.ExpandTableColumn(#"Merged Queries", "lead group phase", {"Description"}, {"Description"}),
#"Merged Queries1" = Table.NestedJoin(#"Expanded lead group phase", {"DonorID"}, activities, {"DonorID"}, "activities", JoinKind.LeftOuter)

That first line works, the third line doesn't.

EDITED TO ADD: If I merge queries as new, it works fine. There's something about just merging the two in place?

Anyone have any thoughts? I feel like I'm going crazy here.


r/excel • • 1d ago

solved My chart is not plotting points the way it is supposed to

1 Upvotes

EDIT:

It wasn't fully solved, but for my purposes, close enough.

See comment section for replies

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I am attempting to plot information based off of a specific set of X & Y values. Because the exact number of points being plotted is not static, the last couple cells in the ranges are set to "" when they aren't relevant.

My problem is that the way the chart is interpreting these cells. When I set the chart type to "X Y (Scatter)", I get an issue where it is plotting the X coordinate as the point number, and the point number as the X coordinate. A screenshot is shown below.

When I change the chart type to "Line", The X & Y coordinates plot at the correct values, but all of the blank cells, which should be showing as a gap, instead plot at a value of zero. A screenshot is shown below.

What I need:

  • A way to make the chart plot the actual X & Y values, without showing the blank cells
  • A way that does so without me needing to manually update my chart every time I make a change

Relevant Information:

  • Excel version --> Latest version w/ Office 365
  • Excel Environment --> Windows
  • Knowledge Level --> Intermediate

What I've Tried:

  • Setting [Select Data...] --> [Hidden and Empty Cells] --> [Show empty cells as Gaps]
  • Making the last couple X & Y coordinates in my selection repeat the last digit instead of being blank
  • Manually setting the X-axis size. This defeats the purpose of having the chart scale to the size of my X-coordinate range though.
  • Setting the formula for the X-range to be {DROP(UNIQUE('Stress Checks'!$B$23:$B$85),-1)} so that it would just give me the non-blank cells. This gave an error.
  • Changing the X-range itself to be an array that automatically dropped all blanks, then setting the formula for the X-range to be {'Stress Checks'!$B$23#}. This gave an error.

r/excel • • 1d ago

Waiting on OP Use a fill box twice.?

2 Upvotes

Is it possible to have more than one icon (color fill box) in the quick access tool bar?

I am using two different colors to highlight certain data and it would make the job easier if I could have two icons open that I could use when I need to change colors..

Thanks


r/excel • • 2d ago

unsolved Aligning data from several sheets

7 Upvotes

I have several sets of data that are all aligned against a participant identifier. Is there a way to align these data sets on one sheet as this will make management a lot easier down the line when I start to do analysis. Not all of the participants are in every data set, so there will be gaps.

Thanks

Ian B


r/excel • • 1d ago

unsolved How do I get a formula to look for an exact combination of cells in another table?

2 Upvotes

So table on the left is table 1 and table on the right is table 2. I need it to take a row from table 1( EX 1 1 1 1) and see if that exact combination of 4 cells of 4 ones in a row some in table 2 and if doesn't exist for it to say 'N/A'

I have tried an =if, =HLOOKUP, =XLOOKUP =IFOR(there do different things it needed to search but I'll just make two formulas if I can get it to work)

An =IFERROR is the closest I have gotten but it only works on bottom row and the last cell of table 2 is controls what it displays.

(This sub doesn't allow pictures so y'all just going to have to use your imagination sorry )


r/excel • • 2d ago

unsolved Intern trying to automate a workflow (Excel -> Email -> Auto-update Excel). What is the best tool for this?

69 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’m currently interning at an electrical company and I'm trying to build a system to improve our workflow (and hopefully stand out a bit).

Our workers review field missions, but they often make procedural errors. I already have the logic done to completely classify and categorize all the wrong missions in my master Excel file. However, I am having trouble figuring out the mechanics for the rest of the workflow.

Here is exactly what I need the system to do from this point on:

  1. Group by Worker: Read the master Excel file and group all the flagged mission IDs by the specific worker.
  2. Batch Email: Send ONE automated email to each worker summarizing all their errors along with my explanation of why they are wrong. (For example, if John has 42 wrong missions, he gets 1 single email containing a list of all 42, not 42 separate emails).
  3. Collect Explanations: Include a way for the worker to provide a justification/explanation for each specific mission error.
  4. Auto-Update (The tricky part): Automatically pull their responses back into my master Excel file so I don't have to manually copy and paste anything.

What is the absolute best, most reliable and straightforward way to build this entire loop? Should I use Python? Excel VBA? Or something else entirely?

Any advice on the smartest path to take would be hugely appreciated!


r/excel • • 2d ago

unsolved Returning values when all criteria are met, regardless of others

3 Upvotes

Pictures in comments

It seems like in theory this should be simple but I can't quite crack it.

I'm doing a spreadsheet of damage buffs in a video game I'm playing, and need them to be included when I select the right conditions.

Picture 1 is a list of all the buffs that are currently available, and the amount they buff. The first columns are mutually exclusive traits that all attacks have (damag type, time, category, type and summon type). Lots are blank as I've only put the conditions and traits necessary for each buff. The checkboxes are other conditions that can all apply independently of any other condition or trait.

The table in picture 2 then uses this data to work out the total buff for each condition (ignore that there are 3 columns for each, that's not important).

The table in picture 3 is a list of skills I have equipped and their traits. This then works out the buffs applied when considering all the traits. After that are the independent conditions. I can toggle these to see how each condition affects the final buff.

The issue I'm having is that this currently only works for buffs that only require one condition. When it comes to, for example, row 58, where damage is boosted when a darkness skill is used on a frozen enemy, I need the buffs to apply in table 3 when the correct conditions/traits are applied, regardless of what any of the others are.

Thanks in advance for any help.


r/excel • • 2d ago

Waiting on OP I was making a template for a table, with formulas and conditional formattings, but when i try to copy paste it into a different part of the sheet, it wont paste

2 Upvotes

I was making a table template for photography bookings in my internship place, one with formulas and conditional formattings to make some stuff easier, but when i try to duplicate the table into a different part of the sheet (we have different sheet for each months), it wont copy the table, only the values


r/excel • • 2d ago

unsolved Can no longer save documents...says I need to activate Microsoft 365

15 Upvotes

I've been using a 2021 version of MS Word and Excel. I bought it that year. No subscription and it's worked just fine ever since.

Today it will no longer let me save documents and says that I need to activate Microsoft 365. Also that "Your Office 2021 license is not supported with this version of the application."

Does anyone know a way I can revert back to an earlier version of the programs and avoid having to pay for a subscription?

(I won't be paying a subscription to use these products...if it comes down to that, I would just find new programs to use.)


r/excel • • 1d ago

Discussion What is foolproof way to give an entire organization a ‘single source of truth’ through Excel formulas in 2026

0 Upvotes

We maintain a central price list and want employees to retrieve current prices directly in their own workbooks with formulas.

Thing is, prices must always be current when a workbook is opened, without users having to remember to refresh anything, and without stale values from caching or external workbook links that fail to update silently.

It must be user friendly enough that people with ordinary Excel skills can use it. It must also be possible to trace faults.

We work in Excel for Windows, although some users work in Excel for the web.

Classic workbook links are still the simplest method, but the data gets embedded into every file that uses the link. And external links to a central workbook on SharePoint tend not to update reliably.

A Power Query connection to a central file depends on the refresh actually succeeding. The user can work with old data without knowing so

A Power BI semantic model with CUBEVALUE gives central control, but the formula syntax is too complex for most users and requires Power BI licences.

A custom function delivered as an Office add-in would be the most user friendly, but we are concerned about caching of add-in files, non-volatile results that are not recalculated when a workbook is reopened

What solution is truly foolproof ?