TIPS & TRICKS: Disappearing Gridlines On Some Cells in Excel

There's an Excel file that is shared in my office. I know people cut and paste cells/rows of information to move elsewhere. I often find that this type of modification makes some cells look like they have lost their gridlines. There's several reasons why this might occur:

• The gridlines are turned off. (Fix: View > Recheck box for gridlines).

• The gridlines are colored over, usually with white. (Fix: right-click on cell > Format Cells > Fill tab > Select No Color, or select white and then reselect no color)

• The borders are colored white. (Fix: right-click on cell > Format Cells > Border tab > change color to Automatic)

• The gridlines have been colored white. (Fix: click on File > Options > Advanced > Display options for this worksheet > change Gridline color to black)

Found these reasons from this handy page: 

http://mcstech.net/blog/index.cfm/2011/12/29/Disappearing-Excel-Gridlines

My particular fix came from the second reason. I've tried it on Excel 2010 and Excel 2013. 

TIPS & TRICKS: Excel for Mac, Keyboard Shortcut for Absolute References

Many users of Excel have known to use F4 to change relative/absolute references on Excel for Windows. However, as more and more people come to use Office for the Mac, people want the Mac equivalent for some keyboard shortcuts, including relative/absolute cell references. From a student suggestion, the shortcut for Excel for Mac is CMD T. After the reference to the desired cell has been either typed or selected, hit CMD T to toggle between the different ways to make the reference absolute.

Hope this helps someone out.

RAVES: Solver for Excel 2008

By now we all know that the latest release of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac has left out Visual Basic support. This means tools that relied on Visual Basic are also missing. One such tool was Solver.

Fortunately, there is now an interim answer before Microsoft puts Visual Basic back in the next release of Office for Mac. A company called FrontLine Systems has come up with a solution for those of us who rely heavily on Solver. Here's the link to a Microsoft affiliate website to download the software for this new solution:

http://www.officeformac.com/blog/Solver-For-Excel-2008-Is-Available

Hope this helps.