What’s the most useful MS Excel trick you know?

Answer 1

An often underappreciated capability of Excel is that it’s not only able to retrieve data from websites but also can be programmed to communicate with other Microsoft applications and even Adobe PDF viewer using Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Automation. For example, you could create Visual Basic macros in Excel which at the click of a button would allow you to export an Excel chart into a PowerPoint slide or export an Excel form into a PDF or Microsoft Word file.

Answer 2

There are several very powerful aspects to spreadsheets in general. My “favorite” has to do with graphing.

if you want to draw a picture in a graph, using (x,y) coordinates, use the Scatter diagram with Connected dots.

in particular, put the x-coordinates in column A and the y-coordinates in column B. Then select the first two columns, and Insert Chart | Scatter | Connected Points.

with this tool you can draw points all over the graph, you can draw boxes, stair steps, special scale markings, etc.