Hair on Fire

It's been a rough two weeks, for more than one reason.

I told you near the end of April that we were moving in the near future. Well, the near future has arrived, and we moved out of our home at the first of this week. Today, however, we are at a family reunion in Texas. Then, tomorrow we high-tail it back to Wyoming so we can close on the sale on Monday.

Well, about a week or ten days ago, the hosting company for the Tips.Net websites decided they absolutely HAD to do an upgrade for security reasons. They took about 12-14 hours, during which the sites were down, and when they finished they said "check it out and let us know of any issues."

There were, of course, issues. Like email not working. Like commenting not working. Like back-end processes not working. Like database access not working. Like FTP not working. On and on and on. And they were quite slow in getting things fixed.

The bottom line is that if you tried to email me a solution to last week's Help Wanted questions, there's a good chance I didn't get it. Because I wasn't getting anything! All in the middle of trying to pack up the house and a business.

As everyone knows, there are only 24 hours in a day. Sometimes a perfect storm happens, and you still need to try to get through everything in those 24 hours. There were days I was no fun to be around, I know.

I'm hoping, at this point, that things are pretty well back to normal, at least as far as my hosted servers are concerned. I guess that only time will tell, but this go-round all the hair-on-fire issues will be happening as we move into our new house this next week.

I honestly mean it when I say that I hope you've had a good week. I hope you also enjoy the tips in this week's newsletter.

—Allen
     

ExcelTips (ribbon) for 6 June 2026

Customizing Excel
Permanently Turning On Set Precision As Displayed

Some people prefer to have what is displayed on the screen in Excel be the precision at which the program works. If you fall in this camp, you may wonder if you can turn on the setting permanently. The short answer is no, you cannot, but you can make some adjustments via macros.

Read this tip »

 
Powerful spreadsheets
Hiding Outline Symbols

Outline symbols are automatically displayed by Excel when you add subtotals or organize your data using an outline. If you don't want those symbols to appear, you can configure Excel as described in this tip.

Read this tip »

 
Formatting Made Powerful

Discover one of the foundational building blocks of Excel. Custom formats are the basis for all cell-level formatting in Excel, and you can master their use. Display your data exactly and precisely as you want.

 
Excel can calculate date in lightening time
Creating Scenario Summaries

If you've defined a variety of scenarios for your workbook, Excel can provide a handy way to compare the effects of those scenarios. This is called a scenario summary, as described in this tip.

Read this tip »

 
Macros extend Excel
Changing the Default Drive

Do you have a macro that needs to read and write files? If so, then there is a good chance you need to specify the default drive on which those files reside. Here's how to do it.

Read this tip »

     

Help Wanted

This section is for those having problems making Excel behave. If Excel is giving you fits, feel free to submit your own Help Wanted question.

If you have a solution for the problems below, click the link after the problem to send us your answer. (All responses become the sole property of Sharon Parq Associates, Inc., and can be used in any way deemed appropriate.) If your response is used in a future issue, you will be credited for your contribution to the answer.

 
Highlighting Static Values

I have a large worksheet in which I would like to locate and highlight all the cells that contain static values. Is there an easy way to fill all those cells with yellow?
—Bill Treadmore (provide an answer for this Help Wanted question)

 
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