Early in my career I built files only I could use. Hand one to a colleague and a formula would be gone by lunch.

They couldn't tell which cells to type in and which ones to leave alone.

Honestly, a few weeks later, neither could I.

There's a simple fix for this. It's called Cell Styles.

You'll find it right there on the Home tab.

No need to format cell by cell or play around with the format painter. Just apply a chosen style for consistent design throughout the workbook.

Excel already has built-in styles for input cells and calculated cells.

Problem is, the defaults are loud. Bright orange, heavy borders, colors that don't belong anywhere near a corporate report.

Good news: you can change all of it. Right-click the style, hit Modify, and adjust the fill, font, or border to something more muted.

I usually go for very pale yellow or light grey for input cells. Subtle enough that it doesn't scream, but still tells you "type here."

Same trick works on that hyperlink color you've never liked. Modify the Hyperlink style once, and every new link picks it up from then on.

Want your own style on top of the built-in ones? Duplicate one, rename it, adjust the format. It'll sit under Custom, ready to use across every tab.

One thing to know: these live in the workbook you made them in. To reuse them in other files, you'll need to save the workbook as a template.

Power Query Challenge Pack: there's more than one right answer

In case you missed it, the Power Query Challenge Pack is out. 15 real-world challenges, based on problems members actually run into at work.

One thing about Power Query: there's rarely just one way to solve something.

You'll work through a challenge, land on an approach that works, then check the solution video and realize there's a completely different way to get there. Both work. Neither is wrong.

That's where the comments come in. Members post their own approaches. Some hit the same wall you did. Some found a shortcut you didn't. A few even bring real examples from their own data.

It's worth scrolling through, even after you've solved a challenge yourself. And if you're stuck, Team XelPlus is right there too.

🤓 Geeky News

👥 Teams will know when you're at the office

Microsoft is rolling out a feature called Workplace check-in. When your company connects Teams to Microsoft Places, connecting to the office Wi-Fi can automatically update your work location for the day, so colleagues can see you're in.

It's not stored or tracked over time. Just a current, in-the-moment signal.

Your company decides whether it's on, and whether it's opt-in or opt-out by default. But you control it on your end too. If your device location settings are off, it won't activate, no matter what your IT department configures.

Whether your employer ever turns this on is out of your hands. Whether you say yes to it, for now, isn't. 👀

📂 OneDrive on Mac is getting rebuilt from the ground up

Microsoft is rolling out a new sync engine for OneDrive on Mac. It promises to halve the sync time and use less battery and memory.

It also removes a hidden cache folder that's been causing sync issues since 2022. Files no longer get duplicated in the background, just lighter metadata.

Rolling out to Insiders now, full release over the next few weeks. If you've had OneDrive sync headaches on Mac, this is the fix that's been a long time coming.

🤔 Did You Know?

You hit the comma button to add a thousand separator to your numbers. It also adds two decimals you didn't ask for.

Want zero decimals instead? You could hit decrease decimal twice. Or save yourself those extra clicks.

You see, that comma button is just a cell style called Comma. Go to Cell Styles, find Comma [0], and that's the same thing with zero decimals built in.

Or modify Comma itself to whatever decimal count you actually want.

Same trick works for Currency, including the default currency symbol. Thanks to Wyn Hopkins for showing this at the Global Excel Summit.

👏 The go-to guy for reports

Mick works in IT Quality Assurance. He'd already finished our Power Query course and knows his way around Excel. But the basics always felt a bit shaky.

So he went back to Excel Essentials for the Real World.

Mick Stevens IT Quality Assurance

I consider myself a good Excel user. I even completed the "Master Excel Power Query - Beginner to Pro" course, but I always felt a little uneasy with the basic functions in Excel. I took this course to brush up on the basics, and I am so glad I did! I have now become the go-to guy for all reports in our office. They have been working so well for us that we are now offering these tools to other departments. I have made these into templates that can be easily adapted by anyone.

I love that he went back for the basics after finishing the advanced course. Takes a certain confidence to do that.

See you next week,

Leila

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