Highlighting the Largest Values in a Column

Conditional formatting can help you spot exactly the data you want. If you want to easily see the largest three values in a column, you can apply the steps detailed in this tip.

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(Thanks to Fred Potter, Brian Moreira, John Vander Linden, Bob Farey, Murray Belchamber, and Gary Lundblad for contributing to this tip.)

Counting Names Based on Two Criteria

Need to figure out how many rows in a worksheet meet two criteria that you specify? Here's how to get the info you desire.

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PivotTables Make You Feel Faint?

Do you get weak in the knees when asked to deal with huge amounts of data? Forget feeling faint ever again when you are asked to deal with PivotTables. Learn much more than the basics with PivotTables for the Faint of Heart, now available in three great versions.

Creating Scenarios

Excel allows you to create different scenarios for the data in your worksheet. These can be saved and managed using the Scenario Manager, as described in this tip.

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Adjusting Values with Formulas

Paste Special is a great tool that allows you to modify the values in a range of cells in your worksheets. You may want, however, to instead change the values in cells into formulas that show how your modification was done. This tip examines how you can do this.

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(Thanks to Leslie Glasser for contributing to this tip.)

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.

Taking Time of Day into Account in a Formula

I run a small job shop, and we often get people who come in late in the day and want their work done by the end of the day. We normally charge these people a 20% rush fee. In pricing a job in a worksheet, I would like to have a line that calculates the rush fee, but only if the current time is later than 3:00 pm. If it is later, then rush fee would be equal to 20% of the value in cell E15. Can a formula take the time of day into account in this way?
—Vern Crickson (provide an answer for this Help Wanted question)