Welcome to another edition of my newsletter. I love receiving thank-you's from my readers when one of my tips makes an immediate impact on them. That kind of response makes putting together this newsletter a joy for me every week.

Many of you have been asking for practice files to help you better understand and absorb some of my tips and tutorials. This week I have created two practice files that you can download from my website. I will be adding more practice files in the coming weeks. Please let me know if you find these helpful and if you have any suggestions for improvement.

I'd like to bring your attention to my P.S. note below regarding emails being sent to me. If you have sent me an email in the past and didn't get a reply, it was probably accidentally thrown out with my junk mail. By putting TheExcelAddict in the Subject line, I will be sure to read it.

I look forward to and appreciate all your emails and suggestions.

Have a great week and keep on Excelling.

To your success,
Francis J Hayes (The Excel Addict)

P.S. VERY IMPORTANT Please remember to include "TheExcelAddict" in the Subject line of any email you send me. This will help it stand out in the flood of junk email I have been receiving lately.

Will you help me reach my goal? As you know, I really love using Excel and sharing my tips with everyone who can benefit from them. My goal is to have my weekly tips going out to 4,000 readers by the end of this year. And I would really appreciate it if you could help me reach my goal by sharing this newsletter with all of your 'Excel-loving' friends and colleagues. You will be helping me and also everyone you share my tips with. Go ahead, email this newsletter right now to three people you know who use Excel. Thanks in advance for your support.

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Previously I shared with you one of Excel's coolest time-saving tricks - the Fill Handle. By dragging the Fill Handle with your mouse, you can easily fill a range of cells with a copy of the original cell or create a series based on the original range. View my previous tip here.

But it gets even better! You can fill the range of cells much faster by double-clicking the Fill Handle. The series of cells will be filled downwards as far as there are entries in a column immediately to the right or the left.

Just try it!

Download practice file:
(right-click to Save file to your computer)
DoubleClickFillHandle.xls

If you are not familiar with the Fill Handle, you'll need to read my previous tip to appreciate it's usefulness.

If you work with large lists of data, Excel's automatic Subtotals feature can save you a lot of time and frustration. And it's really pretty simple to use.

Excel can automatically calculate and insert subtotal and grand total rows for your list in a fraction of the time it would take you to do it manually. This allows you to subtotal one or more columns of numbers, based on related data in another column.

When subtotal rows are inserted, Excel outlines your list so that can easily display or hide the detail information for each subtotaled row. This allows you to quickly and very easily summarize a large list into a manageable summary of the underlying data.

To help you with this lesson I have added a sample worksheet to my website that is ready for you to practice on.

NOTE that you must right-click on the link below and Save the file to your computer, otherwise it may open in your browser - not a great way to learn Excel.

Download practice file:
(right-click to Save file to your computer)
AutoSubtotals.xls

Sorting Your List:
In preparing a list for subtotals, your first step is to sort it so that related data in the rows you want to subtotal are grouped together.

1. Make sure that you have a cell selected in your list. (** see note below)
2. From the Data menu select Sort...
3. From the 'Sort By' dropdown list, select the column you want to base your subtotals on.
4. If the top row in your list contains headings (highly recommended), make sure the 'Header Row' option is selected at the bottom of the dialog box.
5. Now click OK to complete the sort.

1. Make sure that you have a cell selected in your list. (** see note below)
2. On the Data menu select Subtotals...
3. In the Subtotals dialog box, select the column you want to base your subtotals on from the first dropdown list.
4. From the 'Use Function' dropdown list, make sure Sum is selected.
5. In the 'Add subtotals to' list, place a checkmark for each column in your list containing numbers you wish to subtotal.
6. Click OK and your subtotals and grand total will be inserted

You will also notice that when the outline is collapsed, showing just the subtotal rows, there are small 'plus signs' to the left of each subtotal row. Clicking on a plus sign will reveal the details for that particular subtotal.

Removing Subtotals:
If your subtotals are only temporary, you can easily remove them completely by selecting Data, Subtotals... and clicking the 'Remove All' button in the dialog box.

** Selecting your list - Excel usually does a pretty good job in determining which range of cells make up your table. However, it isn't perfect and sometimes it doesn't get it right. Anytime you are sorting or subtotaling a table, starting from a single cell within the table, it is good practice to double-check the range that Excel selects before continuing. Some people swear by manually selecting the table first, just to be sure. Also, saving or backing up your workbook before sorting is highly recommended. You can really mess things up if you do the sorting wrong.

There are tens of millions of other Microsoft Excel users all over the world. The vast majority of them have a very limited knowledge of Excel's capabilities. My goal is to share this information with everyone I possibly can and help them to benefit from Excel's amazing capabilities.

Please help me spread the word about my newsletter. If you know other Excel users, please tell them about "Spreadsheet Tips From An Excel Addict". I know they'll appreciate it. Go ahead, email this newsletter right now to three people you know who use Excel.

Maybe you know someone who supervises or employs many Excel users. That's where your referral could have a big impact.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please refer only people you know personally, who use Microsoft Excel and would benefit from this newsletter.

Right now, there are probably many files on your hard drive that you need access to but you wouldn't want changes made to them, such as last year's documents. You can prevent these files from accidentally being changed simply by making them 'read-only'.

Go to Windows Explorer, right-click the file(s) you want to protect, select Properties and, in the Attributes section, add a checkmark for 'Read-only'. If you ever need to make changes to these files in the future, just remove the 'Read-only' checkmark.