Clear fixes for Excel & Google Sheets formulas. Tutorials include copy-ready formulas. Check each article for its actual verification environment and author notes.
Numbers stored as text break SUM, lookups and sorting. Spot them in seconds, then convert with Convert to Number, Paste Special, Text to Columns, VALUE/NUMBERVALUE or Power Query, plus the hard cases.
TRIM leaves spaces behind? Find out exactly which character it is with one formula, then remove non-breaking spaces (CHAR 160), line breaks, tabs and zero-width characters in Excel or Google Sheets.
ARRAYFORMULA, MAP/LAMBDA or fill down in Google Sheets? A decision table and side-by-side formulas for row math, AND/OR per row, row totals, running totals and per-row SUMIFS.
COUNTIF, COUNTIFS or SUMPRODUCT? A decision table plus tested examples for AND, OR, case-sensitive, row-by-row and month counts, and the edge cases that give wrong totals.
FILTER or QUERY in Google Sheets? A decision table, 9 side-by-side formulas, and the traps (mixed data types, case, column letters, empty results) that decide which one to use.
Calculate hours worked in Excel when a shift crosses midnight. Copy the MOD formula, subtract breaks, total over 24 hours, split night hours and overtime. Free timesheet.
Calculate age from a date of birth in Google Sheets with DATEDIF: whole years, years-months-days, age on a set date, next birthday, plus leap-day and month-end edge cases.
Excel dates left-aligned, not sorting, or giving #VALUE!? Detect dates stored as text and convert them with DATEVALUE, Text to Columns, Paste Special or DATE+MID.
XLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, INDEX MATCH, SUMIFS and COUNTIFS: why lookups fail and how to sum or count with conditions.
4 tutorialsIMPORTRANGE, QUERY parse errors, "array result was not expanded", #SPILL!, FILTER and ARRAYFORMULA explained.
6 tutorialsSum hours over 24, overnight shifts, ages, working days and dates stored as text, in Excel and Google Sheets.
4 tutorialsDuplicates, stray spaces, numbers stored as text, splitting names, extracting emails and drop-down lists.
5 tutorialsCheckbox counters, habit trackers, invoices, attendance, inventory and Gantt charts you can copy and adapt.
1 tutorialXLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, #SPILL!, dates and numbers stored as text.
IMPORTRANGE, QUERY, ARRAYFORMULA, checkboxes and conditional formatting.
Trackers and templates with every formula explained.