Toggle between date values and serial values in Excel
Thursday, January 08, 2009 11:55 AM
When working with time and date values, it can be beneficial to know a valueÂ’s serial value. Fortunately, Excel makes it easy to take a quick peek.
Microsoft Excel
Toggle between date values and serial values in Excel
Excel formats date and time values in a way that's meaningful to us: 11/12/08; November 12, 2008; 1:36 PM; 11/12/08 13:36, and so on. At a glance, we know exactly what the date and time string represents. Internally, Excel uses a serial value, not the formatted value that we see.
When working with time and date values, it can be beneficial to know a value's serial value. Fortunately, Excel makes it easy to take a quick peek. Simply press [Ctrl]+~ (that's the Shift value for the ` key, just left of the 1 key).
You can test this quickly enough by entering a few date and time values:
- Press [Ctrl]+; to enter the current date.
- Press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+; to enter the current time.
- Press [Ctrl]+; then [Spacebar] then [Ctrl]+[Shift]+; to enter the current date and time.
To see the serial values for each date and time value, simply press [Ctrl]+~. When you're done, press [Ctrl]+~ again to return to normal view. Excel automatically adjusts the column width for both views.
Microsoft Word
Create blank lines in a printed Word form the easy way
Word users often create printed fill-in forms that include underlined blanks spaces for writing in form data. While you can press Shift + - (hyphen) repeatedly to create these underlined spaces, it's difficult to line up the lines. Leader tabs make it easier to create even lines, as well as saving keystrokes, but you're limited to four underline styles.
Using the Underline button to underline tab characters gives you all the advantages of leader tabs with a wider choice of underline styles. For example, say you have used tabs to lay out your form, as shown in Figure A.
Figure A
To create the lines, just follow these steps.
- Click the Show/Hide button on the Standard toolbar so that you can see tab marksin your document. In Word 2007, click Show/Hide on the Home tab in the Paragraph group.
- Select the first tab mark you want to underline, then hold down the Ctrl key while you select each of other tab marks (Figure B).
Figure B
- Go to Format | Font, choose the thick underline style from the Underline drop-down list, and click OK. In Word 2007, go to the Home tab, click the Underline button arrow in the Font group, and select a style from the Underline style list (Figure C).
Figure C
All lines will be printed, as shown in Figure D.
Figure D
Microsoft Access
Save a million keystrokes by turning Access text boxes into combo boxes
Do you find yourself constantly typing the same data in the same field? For example, say you work with an Employee Data form, and you find that you're typing the same three Zip codes repeatedly. Since most of your employees live near your company's three offices, you seldom need to type any other codes. By converting the Zip code text box into a combo box, you'll eliminate the retyping.
Follow these steps:
- Open the form in Design view.
- Right-click the Zip/Postal Code text box.
- Move to Change To and click Combo Box (Figure A).
Figure A
- Right-click the Zip/Postal Code combo box.
- Click Properties (Figure B).
Figure B
- On the Data tab, click the Build button in the Row Source field (Figure C).
Figure C
- Add the Employees table.
- In the field list, double-click Zip/Postal Code.
- Click in the Criteria box under Zip/Postal Code and enter Is Not Null (Figure D).
- Close and save the query.
Figure D
Now you can simply select one of the three zip codes from the drop-down list in the combo box, as shown in Figure E.
Figure E
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