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If you use Excel regularly, you're probably comfortable doing the standard spreadsheet stuff: You enter data, create basic formulas, and apply formatting. Although complete mastery of Excel certainly isn't one of your goals in life, you're always on the lookout for something that can make your job easier. But you simply haven't had the time or motivation to fully explore all that Excel has to offer.

Sound familiar? If so, now's your chance to pick up a few handy tricks that you may not have discovered yet. And if you're new to Excel, these tips will help get you off to a flying start.

The following ten tips will work in Excel versions 97 and later.

1. What's the Current Date or Time?

You may be familiar with Excel's NOW function, which plugs the current date and time into your spreadsheet. Just enter =NOW() into any cell, and Excel displays the date and time formatted according to the regional options you've set for Windows. If you just want to see the date, use the TODAY function, =TODAY(), instead.

But if you want to use either of these functions as a type of "timestamp" you'll find that they don't do the job, because they're automatically updated whenever your worksheet is calculated or re-opened. The cell that displays today's date will display tomorrow's date when you open the spreadsheet tomorrow.

To insert a fixed date into a cell--a date that you don't want to change--hold down Ctrl while you press the semicolon ( ;) key. To insert the current time (without a date), press Ctrl-Shift-Semicolon.

These commands are useful if you like to document your work. For example, you might want to keep track of when you added new data to your worksheet.

2. Top Secret: Do Not Print

When it's time to print your Excel worksheet, you may prefer that some information is left unprinted. For example, you may have some confidential information (such as employee salaries) in a column, or your sheet may have some intermediate calculations that the top brass aren't interested in seeing.

To avoid printing specific rows or columns, just hide them before printing. To hide rows, select them by clicking the row numbers (click and drag to select a block of rows; hold down Ctrl while clicking to select non-adjacent rows). Then right-click one of the highlighted border row numbers and click Hide. Use the same procedure to hide columns (but right-click a highlighted column letter to choose Hide).

When you're finished printing, you can quickly unhide all rows or columns by selecting the entire worksheet (click the blank gray box formed by the intersection of the row and column borders at the top left corner of your spreadsheet). Then right-click a row or column border and choose Unhide.

3. Quick Math Without Formulas

If you want to do math with Excel, your only choice is to write formulas, right? Wrong! Get familiar with Excel's Paste Function dialog box, and learn how to perform a variety of basic math operations without a single formula. Consider this scenario: Your company's product price list stored in a worksheet. Your boss informs you that, effective immediately, all prices must be increased by 5 percent.

You could create some formulas to do the math, and then convert the formulas to values, and then copy and paste the new prices over the old prices. Or, you could use this more efficient method:

1. Enter 1.05 into any blank cell. This is the "multiplier" that will increase the prices by 5 percent.
   
   
2. Select the cell you used in Step 1, and choose Edit, Copy or press Ctrl-C.
   
   
3. Select the range of values to be changed, and choose Edit, Paste Special to display the Paste Special dialog box.
   
   
4. Choose the Multiply option and click OK.
   
   

Voilà! The values are changed in an instant. You can then delete the cell that contains the 1.05 multiplier.

Note that the Paste Special dialog box lets you carry out other mathematical operations--like add and subtract, for instance--so you can use this technique for a variety of other calculations.

4. Shade Alternate Rows

Looking for a way to simulate that nerdy green-banded computer paper on screen? Look no further. Excel's Conditional Formatting feature has many uses, and here's one that's particularly handy. Conditional Formatting makes it simple to apply cell shading (green or otherwise) to every other row in a worksheet range. For a lengthy list, shading alternate rows can improve legibility.

Here's how to do it:

1. Highlight the range of cells or rows or columns that you want to format.
   
   
2. Choose Format, Conditional Formatting to display the Conditional Formatting dialog box.
   
   
3. Select Formula Is from the first drop-down list box, and enter =MOD(ROW(),2)=0 in the second box.
   
   
4. Click the Format button to bring up the Format Cells dialog box.
   
   
5. Select the Patterns tab and specify a color for the shaded rows. You'll probably want to choose a light color, so that the default black text will still be legible. Or, you can go all out and change the text color as well (do this in the Font tab of the Format Cells dialog box). For example, you might select a dark blue background, accompanied by a mellow yellow text color.
   
   
6. Click OK twice to return to your worksheet.
   
   

The best part is that the row shading is dynamic: The alternate row shading persists even if you insert or delete rows within the original range. By the way, if get tired of this new look and want to get things back to normal, just select the range, choose Format, Conditional Formatting, and click the Delete button in the Conditional Formatting dialog box.

5. Add a Drop-Down List

Inserting a drop-down list to a cell is a slick trick that can add a touch of professionalism to your worksheets--and also ensure that erroneous data is not entered into the cell. And best of all: Macros are not required!

Assume that you have an input cell in which the user is supposed to enter a month name: January, February, and so on. Here's how to add a drop-down list to that cell to make data entry a breeze--and save some keystrokes.

1. Enter the items for your drop-down list into a list on the worksheet, one item per cell. In this example, I'll assume that the month names start in cell E1 and extend down to E12, but they can be in any out-of-the-way location on the worksheet. In Excel terminology, a rectangular group of cells (such as E1 to E12) is called a range.
   
   
2. Select the cell that will contain the drop-down list. If you'd like more than one cell to display the same list, just select them all now rather than setting them up one at a time. (Click and drag to select a range; hold down Ctrl while you click to select non-adjacent cells.)
   
   
3. Choose Data, Validation to display the Data Validation dialog box.
   
   
4. Click the Settings tab.
   
   
5. In the Allow field, select List.
   
   
6. In the Source field, specify the range that contains the list items. In this example, the items are in cells E1 to E12, so type =E1:E12 into the field.
   
   
7. Click OK.
   
   

After performing these steps, you'll see a drop-down arrow whenever any of the drop-down cells you just defined is "active" (that is, selected and awaiting input). Click the arrow and choose a month from the list. If you try to type something else into the cell, you'll get scolded in the form of a pop-up message.

If you'd like to provide your own wording for invalid entries, use the Error Alert tab in the Data Validation dialog box, and enter your own text in the 'Error message' field.

If your list of items is relatively small, you can bypass Step 1 and enter the list items directly into the Source field in Step 6. Just separate each list item with a comma.