When you paste or import data into the Excel spreadsheet, you might notice unusual symbols like a diamond with a question mark. The replacement character � (often a black diamond with a white question mark or an empty square box) represents an unknown, unrecognized or unrepresentable character:

Excel provides three easy ways to print chosen ranges: print the selection, define the print area in the Page Setup dialog, or create the print area. The first two methods work well for occasional printing but, if you need to print a specific range or ranges of worksheet frequently, defining one or multiple areas to print, significantly reduce the efforts. Moreover, with print areas, you can easily add new ranges to the current selection.

Protecting a workbook is different from protecting the Excel file with a password to prevent reading/writing or locking the spreadsheet elements to prevent editing. Workbook protection forbids other users to add, move, rename or delete worksheets and defends against viewing hidden worksheets or hiding worksheets.

If you need to count the number of dates between two dates in Excel, you don't need to use DATEDIF and other Excel date manipulation functions. Date in Excel isn't a separate type, but a number with proper formatting. The integer part of this number represents days since the fixed moment for all dates. Subtract one date from another, and you will get the number of days between two dates. Also, you can add or subtract an integer from the date, and get the date in the future or the past.

Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart that is often used in project management applications.

The drop-down list is a handy feature provided by Excel data validation tools. Drop-down menus limit the possible choices and help to avoid mistakes. However, not so many Excel users know the Source field of the Data Validation dialog is a formula field. Formulas in the Source field should return the list of the values, but they are not necessarily a range or a list of options.

Dynamic, dependable, conditional, or calculated drop-down list in Excel implies that the contents of the drop-down list for the current cell should depend on values in the other cell and change dynamically when the value of the controlling cell changes.

Named ranges are a powerful Excel feature that allows you to assign a symbolic name for the cell or the range of cells for later use as a convenient replacement for cell or range address in formulas.

A thermometer chart is a kind of progress chart that shows the current completed percentage of the task or the value of any metric relative to the predefined value. E.g., the thermometer scale can display the sales plan status or client satisfaction rate.

Span chart, also known as a range bar graph (range column graph), floating bar graph, difference graph, high-low graph, used to display the specific variable value range. Span charts are ideal for comparing ranges, and typically, each variable represents a particular category. All values for the selected category fall between minimal and maximal values that correspond to lower and upper bounds of the interval.