Michael Davis

I’ve lost hours staring at duplicate entries in Access reports. This one trick cleans it up in seconds. The fix hides repeats in any field without changing your data. Works in reports, forms, or queries with zero coding. I used this last week to clean up a customer database that had 300+ duplicate entries in … Read more

Adding an appendix to a Word document is simpler than it looks. I remember struggling with my first academic paper in college, but the process clicked after I realized it’s just a structured section at the end. The key is consistency—start on a new page, use a clear heading like “Appendix A,” and keep the … Read more

I’ve seen spreadsheets with thousands of rows where one misspelled character throws off entire reports. The solution lies in forcing Excel to match data exactly, character for character, case and all. Most lookup functions default to approximate matching, which causes these errors. Using the EXACT function or switching VLOOKUP to FALSE mode changes everything. It’s … Read more

I still remember the first loan spreadsheet I built in my uncle’s basement. ✨ That clunky Excel file taught me more about finance than any class at Carnegie Mellon. This method uses Excel’s PPMT function to isolate the principal portion of any payment in seconds. No complex math, no financial calculator—just a single formula that … Read more

I still remember the first time I tried to add an image to Excel back in the Windows 98 days. It took me 20 minutes to figure out what now takes 30 seconds. The process hasn’t changed much since then. You can place images directly into cells, resize them to fit perfectly, and even link … Read more

I spent years emailing spreadsheets back and forth before discovering Excel’s @mention feature. It changed how my team collaborates on shared files forever. Tagging someone in Excel is shockingly simple—just type @ followed by their name in a comment or cell. The system pulls from your organization’s directory, so you don’t need to remember exact … Read more

I’ve watched users overcomplicate checkboxes in Word for years. The solution is simpler than most expect—no macros, no third-party tools, just built-in features. Whether you’re using Word 2016, 2019, or 365, the process starts the same: enable the Developer tab. From there, inserting a checkbox takes one click, and customizing it is just as straightforward. … Read more

I spent years manually pulling months from dates in spreadsheets before discovering how this simple function could save me hours. The difference between typing 30 cells by hand and letting Excel do it in one formula is shocking. This approach works with any date format, from full timestamps to simple day-month-year entries. You’ll extract the … Read more

I lost an entire afternoon to scrolling through a massive spreadsheet once. That’s when I discovered Excel’s freeze panes feature—one click to lock both headers and first column in place. No more guessing which row or column you’re looking at while scrolling. The trick is selecting the right cell before freezing—usually the one just below … Read more