Excel Training – Page 46 – STL

Error checking is part of Excel’s auditing tools. It is set up to check your formulas for errors.

Like spellcheck, the Error checker tool won’t necessarily find all errors, but it is a useful auditing tool as it works through your document to flag up the errors it spots.

In the Formula tab, you have the Formula Auditing section. The Error checking tool is included here.

error-checking-excel-courses — Formula auditing in the Formulas tab

The and it has options available to you, to tick what error checking rules you wish to use.

tick-box-error-checking-excel-courses — Here, you can tick the boxes to apply the rules you want the error checker to apply.

In this dialogue box you can select the Enable Background Error Checking, which, like spellcheck, will run in the background as you work.

You’ll know it has found an error as you get a green triangle in the corner of the cell. A discreet reminder that you need to check something. This is called a smart tag, and by clicking on this you can now address the issues that the error checker has found.

When it finds an error, It comes up with a help menu (similar to Spell check when it suggests options) so you can work through systematically.

sample-error-checking-result-excel-courses — Options available to you, once an error has been spotted

If you find spellcheck useful, it doesn’t take too much of a leap of faith (perhaps a mere shuffle) to make the most of the background help with your formulas.Tick the boxes and let it do the work. For more advanced techniques covered in our Excel courses take a look at what we can help you with.

Hyperlinks can add links to an Outlook email address to your Excel worksheet. Here is how to do it.

In the cell you wish to add the email address, go to the Insert tab, and select the hyperlink button

Type your preferred text into the cell (this saves space as email address are long). This will be the text the user will click on to access the email address.

Right-click on this cell and click on Hyperlink. This will open the Insert Hyperlink dialog box. Click the E-Mail Address button at the bottom left side.