I have been approached several times by my friends, colleagues and every that person, who knows that I write a blog on excel, for coaching them on MS Excel. They’ve asked me to take a session or two with them and make them proficient in this tool.

My question is – Is MS Excel really a rocket science? No!

One should not take shortcuts in life – that is what one learns. But, when it comes to MS Excel, I can assure you, that learning some really productive keyboard shot cuts can be really useful.

Sometime back I had written distributed an eBook on Essential shortcuts for MS Excel which was appreciated by everyone.

Adding to that list, I am listing down a few more essential, not-so-well-known shortcuts.

Indirect()

This function is used to return the reference to text reference provided. This function converts the text reference to actual reference and fetches the value available in the address referenced. (It will be much clear when we will take a look at an example)

Syntax:

= Indirect (Text_reference, Reference_format)

Index()


Index function can be used in 2 forms – Array form and the Reference form. I will take each of these here.


Array form: In the first type, it is used to fetch a value from a table / array by making an intersection point using the row number and the column number. In this form, you can specify only a single array from which the values are to be fetched.

Today I am starting to write about Lookup functions, that include VLookUp(), HLookUp(), InDirect(), etc. Lookup functions are one of the most useful and in-demand functions.

These functions are used in lot of applications, their demand in today’s market is very high, one of which is financial industry. And not just financial research, these functions are very famous in other industries also, at all those places where there is high use of Excel spreadsheets.