59, “D”, “F”)))) Notice that I’ve nested three other IF functions to calculate the grades. The last argument doesn’t need the IF function; it automatically displays an F for numbers that have not been accounted for in the nested IF functions. I’ve used the IF function four times, so I’ll need to include four ending parentheses in the formula. Bec.. more »

, the term “VLOOKUP” frequently bubbles up in our list of high-volume search queries. My job is to figure out why this is and what specific information people are actually looking for when they type “VLOOKUP” into the search box in Help or on our web site. The “VLOOKUP” query appears to represent a bunch of different questions. Certainly, o.. more »

This week’s post is written by Amy Miller. Amy is a writer for Office.com. She’s written and edited content for Excel, Access, OneNote, and InfoPath. Imagine you’re working in a spreadsheet and you innocently press the arrow keys on your keyboard to move to another cell, but instead of moving to another cell, the entire spreadsheet moves. You may ha.. more »

Today’s blog post is brought to you by Roxanne Kenison. Roxanne is a writer on Office.com who writes primarily about Office Web Apps and Office Starter. My son starts Kindergarten this fall. I’m excited, but a little sad that our days of co-op preschool are over. Our local community college sponsors a where parents run the preschool. Each pare.. more »

Today’s blog post is brought to you by Gary Willoughby. Gary is a writer on Office.com who has created and edited content about Excel, Access, and Project. Sometimes, I find I have text in a cell that spans far past its own column or…yikes, maybe even off the screen. Because I tend to be a little borderline compulsive, that bothers me just a bit... more »

Enable Iterative Calculations. After selecting your level and difficulty and clicking Play, the game begins. - Creeps come in "waves" of four. Each wave, they get stronger - They require stronger bullets to kill ( ), and reward you with more cash once killed ( ). These stats are under the Creeps part of the menu. - To buy a tower, click on one of .. more »

We want to thank all of you who submitted entries for our Excel challenge. We had great entries that were well designed using Excel 2010 features, VBA and the user interface. Many of you are as passionate about Excel as we are and we thank you for your feedback. We extend our congratulations to the following winners: : Andre L G Viol, United States .. more »

The developer documentation team is asking for your feedback on a couple prototypes for the Open XML SDK Documentation. Visit their blog to download the prototypes and vote: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/officedevdocs/archive/2010/07/13/vote-for-the-prototype-you-like-for-the-open-xml-sdk.aspx.. more »

This blog post is brought to you by Karen Cheng a Program Manager on the Excel team. In today's post, we'll show you how the classic arcade game Missile Command was created in an Excel spreadsheet. We also explain how it's made in this . In this game, missiles drop from the sky, attacking the city. You must click on the missiles to destroy them. To .. more »

The Soccer World Cup is watched by billions around the world and many have tried to use models, from macro-economic to financial ones, to predict the outcome of the world cup. Our team and partners have put together a set of tools and to help you experience a more “analytical” world cup. See our intro video · Start by enrolling in the to win prize.. more »

Thanks to Mauricio Acevedo, Nathan Shomber, Karen Cheng, and Manpratap Suri for putting together this blog post. It's official, Office 2010 is out! To celebrate, we've created two games that are playable in Excel for you to download. To play, you'll need - · To install Excel 2010, hot off the press last week. You can get a free trial . The games u.. more »

Over the last year, we’ve written a number of articles on the new capabilities of . Several of these were related to new charting features in Office 2010. Here is a quick list of them. More Charting Enhancements in Excel 2010 Chart Object Model in Word & PowerPoint These improvements were well received; however, we understand there is a pent up ne.. more »

When using VLOOKUP() we frequently find ourselves facing three common problems: We need to look up something from a column, but we have to look up on two keys instead of one. Let’s say we need to return the State information from the following table. We cannot use just the Produce column – would “Apples” mean Washington? Or Pennsylvania? We need to .. more »

Today’s author is Jan Karel Pieterse, an Excel MVP, who describes the process of importing text in great detail. You can find more useful tips from Jan Karel on his website: http://www.jkp-ads.com/. In this article, I'll explain how to ease importing of .txt, .prn and/or .csv files into an existing sheet in Excel. Introduction .. more »

We had some issues with our entry submission e-mail so we are extending the challenge end date to July 5 If you already submitted your entry but have not received a confirmation e-mail, please re-submit your entry to If you are new to this challenge , this is a unique opportunity for you to join. If you’re into developing Excel-based ap.. more »

We are excited to announce that today Office Web Apps are available on Windows Live. The initial release is available to Windows Live customers in the USA, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland with support for English, Spanish (USA) and French (Canada). More languages and locales will be added over the coming months. This release includes Word, .. more »

From SQL Server Enter Credentials. Your server name can be an IP address Choose any old table or view. Pick a small one because we'll discard it later anyway. Excel will pop up the Import Data dialog box. Click Properties here (NOT THE OK BUTTON). Click on the Definition tab. There, change Command Type to SQL, and then enter your Stored Procedure .. more »

Today’s post is brought to you by Chad Rothschiller a Program Manager on the Excel team. In Part 3 of my series on Excel shortcuts, I’m going to focus on a few miscellaneous shortcuts that help out with daily tasks. Use F4 to repeat the last thing you did, a great shortcut especially if the action just took several clicks. For example: Inse.. more »

In Part 2 of this series on Excel shortcuts, I’m going to focus on a few shortcuts that help out with the absolute essence of Excel: Formulas. For starters, pressing F2 is a convenient way to start editing a formula in a cell: it places the cursor at the end of the formula so you can make quick additions. Now that I’m in “edit” mode, I can start ty.. more »

Score B then we want to record the name of Team A in the Winner column, if not then we want record the name of Team B. The formula would look something like this: Go ahead and copy this down for the entire column. For the Loser column we essentially want to use the exact same formula but reverse it looking something like this: Finally for the Draw .. more »