How and Why you should use a Logarithmic Scale in an Excel Diagram

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Audun Danielsen

Look at the diagrams below – they show the same numbers, but the vertical scales, the y-axis, are different. In this example we see how $1,000 grows to almost $300,000 in 50 years with a 12% yearly return.

The blue diagram has a linear scale on the y-axis, so the distance between 0 and 50,000 is the same as the distance between 200,000 and 250,000. The yellow diagram has a logarithmic scale with base 10, which means that each interval is increased by a factor of 10. Read more to find out how to do this in Excel, and why you may or may not want to use a logarithmic scale:

How to use Excel to validate a dataset according to Benford’s Law

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Audun Danielsen

Benford’s Law describes the phenomenon that in a large dataset, the leading digit of each number does not occur with the intuitively expected probability of 1:9 (11.1%), but rather with a much larger probability for the smaller numbers. For more details on Benfords’s Law, you can read the Wikipedia Article about it, but keep on reading here if you want to learn how to use Excel to check if a dataset is consistent with it. It’s very easy!

For this example I have used population data for all the counties of the United States from census.gov:

How to handle parts per million, basis points and per mille in Excel

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Audun Danielsen

Excel has built-in functionality to handle percent (%), but there is no automatic way to calculate parts per million, basis points, permyriad or per mille in Excel. It is easy to calculate though, but let’s start with the definitions:

And here’s how to apply it:

How to create a Refresh All button in Excel

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Audun Danielsen

It’s easy to forget to refresh your Pivot Tables when you add new source data. Here’s an effective solution to that problem: Add a Refresh button in your Excel report!

This is very easy, and only takes a minute:

There are 3 steps:

Today’s shortcut: Scroll sideways with PageUp and PageDown in Excel

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Audun Danielsen

We all know how to scroll one screen down in Word, Excel or almost any other application: Simply press the Page Down key. But in Excel we often want to scroll sideways too, and here’s how to do it:

Scroll one screen to the right: Alt + Page Down

Scroll one screen to the left: Alt + Page Up

More shortcuts in Excel:

Are you using a non-English version of Excel? Click here for translations of the 140 most common functions in 17 different languages:

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How to calculate prices and make them end with a certain number in Excel

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Audun Danielsen

When you calculate prices you usually know the cost price and the desired profit percentage, so all you have to do is to add the profit to the cost price in order to calculate the sales price. However, the price list might not look as nice as you want:

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