*/
Make 2026 the year you learn to love Excel. Elizabeth Bowden shares tips, tricks and time-savers in part four of her series
Welcome back to bite-sized top tips. This time, we’re focusing on Microsoft (MS) Excel. Excel is my favourite MS app. If you are not an Excel fan, make 2026 the year you learn to love Excel. Your life will be better. As ever, use a dummy document and get experimenting.
If you use Excel for nothing else, use it for chronologies. As you work, add events to your sheet row by row; do not worry about date order. Quickly create a sortable table via Home > Format as Table (pick the look you want). Or highlight the cells to add data filters to header cells: Data/Sort & Filter/Filter. Use the arrows to sort by date.
The other best use of Excel is for costs; having costs in Excel format in court will make your life exponentially easier. Set up Excel cost templates. As a minimum, have an N260 template so you can amend the hourly rates/time, etc., in real time.
Freeze pane in Excel makes chronologies easier to work with: View/Freeze Panes, then choose to freeze the top row, first column, or multiple rows/columns by selecting a cell and then applying ‘Freeze Panes,’. This will make the headers visible while you scroll.
The focus cell highlights the cell you are in. Toggle the focus cell on/off via View > Focus cell. Also, if you get lost in your sheet, type in A1 top left and then press ‘enter’ to return to cell A1, it works for any cell reference.
The AutoSum function saves time (Home/ Σ AutoSum). AutoSum can do other auto-sums, e.g. average. At the bottom of the workbook, the average, count and sum of selected cells are automatically displayed. Press and hold ‘command’ to select non-adjacent cells.
Seeing #### just means the data is too big to display. You can either resize by dragging the column edge or use Home/Format/Auto-fit Column Width to resize all columns in one go (or, if resizing rows, select rows).
Stop the reference changing when you copy or drag the formula to other cells by using an absolute cell reference. If the formula is =SUM(B2*E12), and you want to retain the reference to B2 use the $ to lock it to the absolute cell =SUM($B$2*E12).
If you have data in one workbook across multiple sheets, seeing the other sheets simultaneously makes working with data so much easier. There is a magic button that does this: View/New Window lets you see and work on all the sheets at the same time.
You can use PDF apps to export as an Excel file – but from within Excel, you can directly insert from PDF or an image: Insert/From Picture/Picture from File (or clipboard if you copied it that way) and select the image/PDF with the data you want inserted.
If data in a cell needs separating, use Flash-fill. For example, if names in Column A are ‘Jo Bloggs’, sorting only works by first name. To sort by surname, you need to split the data. Flash-fill will do this quickly. In one row, set out the data as you want it (to give Excel an example). Then use Flash-fill.
To find name duplications quickly, highlight the cells, then select Conditional Formatting/Highlight Cell Rules/Duplicate Values. Explore the other conditional formatting options that can help you with your case preparation, e.g. highlighting cells that contain specific text.
-(002).jpeg?sfvrsn=931a77b_2)
Welcome back to bite-sized top tips. This time, we’re focusing on Microsoft (MS) Excel. Excel is my favourite MS app. If you are not an Excel fan, make 2026 the year you learn to love Excel. Your life will be better. As ever, use a dummy document and get experimenting.
If you use Excel for nothing else, use it for chronologies. As you work, add events to your sheet row by row; do not worry about date order. Quickly create a sortable table via Home > Format as Table (pick the look you want). Or highlight the cells to add data filters to header cells: Data/Sort & Filter/Filter. Use the arrows to sort by date.
The other best use of Excel is for costs; having costs in Excel format in court will make your life exponentially easier. Set up Excel cost templates. As a minimum, have an N260 template so you can amend the hourly rates/time, etc., in real time.
Freeze pane in Excel makes chronologies easier to work with: View/Freeze Panes, then choose to freeze the top row, first column, or multiple rows/columns by selecting a cell and then applying ‘Freeze Panes,’. This will make the headers visible while you scroll.
The focus cell highlights the cell you are in. Toggle the focus cell on/off via View > Focus cell. Also, if you get lost in your sheet, type in A1 top left and then press ‘enter’ to return to cell A1, it works for any cell reference.
The AutoSum function saves time (Home/ Σ AutoSum). AutoSum can do other auto-sums, e.g. average. At the bottom of the workbook, the average, count and sum of selected cells are automatically displayed. Press and hold ‘command’ to select non-adjacent cells.
Seeing #### just means the data is too big to display. You can either resize by dragging the column edge or use Home/Format/Auto-fit Column Width to resize all columns in one go (or, if resizing rows, select rows).
Stop the reference changing when you copy or drag the formula to other cells by using an absolute cell reference. If the formula is =SUM(B2*E12), and you want to retain the reference to B2 use the $ to lock it to the absolute cell =SUM($B$2*E12).
If you have data in one workbook across multiple sheets, seeing the other sheets simultaneously makes working with data so much easier. There is a magic button that does this: View/New Window lets you see and work on all the sheets at the same time.
You can use PDF apps to export as an Excel file – but from within Excel, you can directly insert from PDF or an image: Insert/From Picture/Picture from File (or clipboard if you copied it that way) and select the image/PDF with the data you want inserted.
If data in a cell needs separating, use Flash-fill. For example, if names in Column A are ‘Jo Bloggs’, sorting only works by first name. To sort by surname, you need to split the data. Flash-fill will do this quickly. In one row, set out the data as you want it (to give Excel an example). Then use Flash-fill.
To find name duplications quickly, highlight the cells, then select Conditional Formatting/Highlight Cell Rules/Duplicate Values. Explore the other conditional formatting options that can help you with your case preparation, e.g. highlighting cells that contain specific text.
Make 2026 the year you learn to love Excel. Elizabeth Bowden shares tips, tricks and time-savers in part four of her series
Update from the Chair of the Bar
By Clement Cowley, Partner at The Penny Group
Modernising communication and collaboration at a leading Chancery set. A Zexi case study
How to build profile without compromising professional duties. By Naumaan Farooq, Co-Founder of Inked PR
Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs, examines the role of cut-off levels, and the wider range of factors that must be considered when interpreting results for family court proceedings
Endometriosis Awareness North, a charity raising awareness of endometriosis and supporting those affected across the North of England, has received a £500 boost from AlphaBiolabs via the company’s Giving Back initiative
A decade of reviews and research has disrupted accepted thinking in the search for causality. Suicides following abuse have overtaken domestic homicides. Is the law keeping up? Professor Susan Edwards KC (Hon) examines recent cases and the obstacles to successful prosecution
The case against judge-only justice – and why efficiency is not enough. By Professor Leslie Thomas KC
Jemima Coleman and Zoë Leventhal KC on the evolving global movement seeking to reframe how we view nature: to recognise that nature possesses inherent rights and to enshrine these rights in law
Heritage as an anchor and a compass, finding our common humanity and embracing the power of the outsider – Melina Antoniadis’s lessons learnt
Lauren Fullerton examines the how, what and why of setting up a second chambers base
