My big thrill last year with Microsoft Excel was the v-lookup--a slightly complicated formula that scans one spreadsheet and 'ports information back to a master spreadsheet (so, you could have a list of times on page one, a TV schedule on page 2, and import what show runs at what time to your page one list.) Vlookups save SO much time when I'm importing information from one list of 14,000 product codes into another list of 5434 product codes. Wow.

Today, I've learned to count.

Counting formulas do just that--give the total number of instances a given value occurs.

So I've got this task I've been DREADING--building a list of social studies books, without any duplications, for grades K/1/2/3/4/5. 1200 titles, altogether.

It's SO much faster. I've got two spreadsheets going at once--my list in process, and my list of potential books. The potential book list now tells me in what packages I've listed it, the total inventory in stock, and what I'd planned to do with the title (remove it, leave it as a potential, add it to the list). The list in process tells me how many duplications I have. This is like six times faster than last year, when I did all this crap with "Find within document" .

Most people I work with are now learning the joys of counting.

It's so stupid--it's so obvious that MS Excel can do all of this, but unless someone specifically waves it in front of you, it's never apparent how absolutely necessary these things are.

I need to learn "IFCOUNT" next. With If/And/Or arguments. Oooh.