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Welcome to the Vertex42 Blog

Our most recent articles are listed below. To jump to a specific category of posts, see the category list to the right. The links at the top of this page will take you to some of our most popular collections of Excel and Word templates.

New Templates


Custom LAMBDA Functions in Excel

LAMBDA Library Thumbnail

Introducing the LAMBDA Library – A collection of fully documented new functions for Excel that you can use right now, including array and matrix manipulation, interpolation, eigenvalues and a newton-raphson solver.

Dynamic Arrays in Excel

Dynamic Arrays in Excel

Learn need-to-know information about Dynamic Arrays, the spill behavior, and many of the new functions such as SEQUENCE, VSTACK, FILTER, TOCOL, etc.

Gantt Charts Made Easy – New Version 5.0

Gantt Chart Template Pro version 5.0

In December, 2020 we released a new version of Gantt Chart Template Pro that is designed to consolidate multiple versions and features into a single template. It is available to both new and current customers. Existing customers can return to the download page to get the new version (no new purchase necessary). When I first [...]

Excel Suggestions You Can Vote On!

Excel Suggestions You Can Vote On

Learn how to make and vote on feature suggestions for Excel, using the official Microsoft website. In this article, I have listed some of the features that I would like most, so please vote on them!

Favorite Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Learn essential keyboard shortcuts for Excel and Google Sheets. Download a keyboard shortcut bingo sheet to help you learn hotkeys one at a time.

How to Use Conditional Formatting in Excel

How to Use Conditional Formatting in Excel

Learn over 20 different ways to use conditional formatting in Excel to do things like add color scales for data analysis, add data bars for in-cell charts and progress bars, and create a gantt chart.

Custom Number Formats in Excel

Custom Number Formats in Excel

Learn how to create and use custom number formats in Excel to display numbers in thousands or millions, add units such as “ft” or “lbs”, change font colors, add special symbols, and more.

Using Pivot Tables to Analyze Income and Expenses

Introduction to Pivot Tables in Excel

This introduction to using Pivot Tables in Excel shows how to analyze monthly income and expenses by account, category, date, etc. Download the example spreadsheet to follow along. By guest author and Microsoft MVP, John MacDougall.

Introducing the Savings Snowball Calculator

Savings Snowball

Vertex42 has developed a new Savings Snowball Calculator to help you plan how to reach your savings and debt payoff goals. This article provides some background on the savings snowball concept and explains some of the features of the calculator. Questions and comments are welcome.

Array Formula Examples – Simple to Advanced

Excel Array Formula Examples

In Excel, an array formula allows you to do some powerful calculations that you might not be able to do any other way. Learn how to use both simple and advanced array formulas, including nested IF formulas, sequential number arrays, and matrices.

Text Manipulation Formulas in Excel – The Ultimate Guide

Text Formulas in Excel

This is the ultimate guide to using Text Formulas in Excel such as SUBSTITUTE, LEN, CHAR, CONCAT, TRIM, LEFT, RIGHT, MID, FIND, SEARCH and others. The examples start simple and then build up to more advanced formulas including cleaning up data, splitting text into columns, and converting strings to arrays.

SUMIF and COUNTIF in Excel

SUMIFS and COUNTIFS – Power Functions

SUMIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIF and COUNTIFS are very powerful functions for data analysis. The hardest part is learning how to define the criteria for different types of comparisons. This article shows examples of all the different criteria types, including matching blank and non-blank values.