Microsoft Office Q&A: General Discussion (Word, Excel, PowerPoint...)

What formatting did you use? If you didn't apply any, just set it to general

restlessheron19 said:Just wondering...

Does it matter if the data is in adjacent cells?

Wait, what? A1 and C1 aren't adjacent. Or are you talking about dragging from A1 down to A2, A3, and so on? I don't think that's it.
I'm not following.

I just tested it on my end and it works fine. 🤷

restlessdrifter12 said:Still nothing. I plug in the formula and instead of getting an actual result, it just gives me... nothing. I can't see any content to rewrite! Send over the text you want me to work on.

Weird, right?
There's actually the exact same question over on another forum, and they even posted a file you can just download. Not trying to plug the other site or anything, though. Here's the file. Grab it here..



Need to turn that column of timestamps into actual time? Just use a formula.
=TIME(0, LEFT(E4, 2), RIGHT(E4, 2))
Format cells as Custom => mm : ss

Look, I don't see why we need to make things so damn complicated.
If you just take a second to format those cells where you're punching in the times—say, set them to h:mm first—then a basic SUM function will work perfectly fine. It’s not rocket science.
It’s like when you’re getting dressed in the morning; if you button the very first button on your shirt wrong, the whole thing is going to be crooked and look like a mess all day long.

Thomas Gonzalez8 said:So, just making sure—do I need to drop these links into every single cell in those vertical columns?

Check out that link Tracking Football Scores in Excel—I laid everything out there step-by-step.
If you don't actually test it out, you're never gonna know 😉

How can I stop that annoying blue background from showing up behind my text whenever I paste something?

rustywalker1 said:What format did you end up using? If you haven't done it yet, just format it in... general

Yeah, it worked... once I switched the formatting over to General.

Need some help with Word (2003)
I can't figure out how to get my cursor to move horizontally like this: - . I need to type up some text using that specific format.

Thanks 🙂

If you're messing around with spreadsheets: just click on the cell where you want the text to go, head over to the Layout tab, find the Orientation button, and pick one of those three text directions.

Hey,

I’ve run into a bit of a headache and I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction. 😁

Microsoft Office is acting up on me. I can't save my document for the life of me. Every time I hit the X to close out, it asks if I want to save changes. I click "Yes," but then absolutely nothing happens—it won't save, and it won't even close the window. 🤷

1. Has this been happening to you all along, or is this a new headache? If it just started out of nowhere, we might be looking at some nasty malware or a virus messing with your system.
2. Does the same glitch happen when you try using the Save As command?
3. What exactly shows up in the Look in field? Honestly, just set it to My Documents—it’ll save you the trouble of hunting for your files later.
4. Check the field labeled what to write in the file of type field. You really ought to make sure it's set to Word Document (*.doc)
5. Go ahead and open Tools, then hit Options, move over to the Save tab, and verify that under "Save Word files as," it's also set to Word Document (*.doc)

6. Now, look, if you're just making edits to an existing file and you hit save, the document stays put and those changes are locked in. But if you haven't actually saved the progress and you just go ahead and click the X, everything you did is gone—poof.

Wait, I totally blanked on the name of that free Word alternative you can just grab online... does anyone happen to remember what it's called or where I can find the download link? 🤔
I really need it for drafting some cover letters and stuff like that...

Walter Jackson48 said:1. Has this been happening for a while? If not, you might have picked up a virus.
2. Does the same thing happen when you try using Save As?
3. What does it show in Look in? Try setting it to My Documents (then search there after saving).
4. What shows up in the file of type field? Set it to Word Document (*.doc)
5. Go to Tools, then Options, then Save. In the Save Word Files section, it should also be set to Word Document (*.doc)

6. If you're just editing an existing document and hitting save, the changes should stick. If that's the case, clicking the X will just close it without losing the work.

1.) Everything was fine until a couple of weeks ago. I mostly ignored it because nothing was urgent enough to need saving. It’s probably a virus; I know I caught one, and clearly, the cleanup wasn't thorough enough because every time I launch Word, I get this error: "Word could not create the work file. Check the temp environment variable."
2.) Yeah, even when I try Save As, it just won't save.
3.) I can't find that setting; I'm using Office 2007.🤷
4.) It says: All Word Documents. I switched it to Word Documents.
5.) It says: Word Document (*.docx). Does that extension matter?

Does anyone know how to get rid of a virus? Which program should I download? I'm pretty lost since I've never really dealt with viruses before.

Ryan Sanders83 said:I can't quite remember the name of that free alternative to Word I can grab online—does anyone know what it's called or where to find it? 🤔
I need it for drafting some applications and stuff...

LibreOffice 👍

neonseal22 said:1.) Does anyone happen to know how to get rid of a virus? Like, which program should I download? I'm totally lost when it comes to this stuff.

Look, just take this:http://avast.en.softonic.com/.

How do I get Excel to show me a count of how many cells actually have data at the bottom of my table?
For example, if I have a row of 30 cells filled with various info, I want a total at the bottom that tells me exactly how many cells aren't empty (without me having to count them one by one manually)... just not using autosum

The COUNTA function

Then you just select the range of cells you want to count... simple enough...

I've run into a bit of a snag in Excel—any chance someone could lend me a hand?

I’m working with a column that contains a mix of numerical and text values. What I'm trying to do is have the cell return a "1" if it finds a specific letter within a cell, and a "0" if it doesn't. I tried using the FIND function, but it works fine when the letter is actually there; however, for every other cell, I just get a "#VALUE!" error instead of a zero.

Here’s what the data looks like:

a1
a2
a3
a4
123
1234
12345
123456

The result should look like this (assuming I'm searching for the letter "a"):
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0

Dana Diaz8 Asks:
I've run into a bit of a snag in Excel. Anyone available to lend a hand?

I finally sorted my problem out after digging through the Excel function library for a bit. 😂

Here’s the formula if the values are entered in column B. Is there a more convoluted way to check if a cell contains the letter "a"? `=IF(ISERROR(FIND("a";B1;1))=TRUE;0;1)` I mean, really? We’re out here building massive logic chains just to see if a single character exists in a cell. It works, sure, but why go through all that trouble? Why wrap an `ISERROR` around a `FIND` just to turn a logical error into a zero or a one? Isn't there a cleaner way to breathe life into this formula without making it look like a math textbook exploded on the screen?

Maybe this one will work too:

=IF(ISTEXT(B1🙂8);"1";"0")

Basically, if there's actual text sitting in column B1🙂8, it spits out a "1", otherwise it just gives you a "0".

Timothy Kim60 said:How can I stop that blue background from appearing behind my text whenever I paste something?

Does anyone know how to fix this?