Sometimes it is necessary to compare two Excel worksheets. E.g., compare balance sheets for different periods of time. You can do it by comparing spreadsheets side by side in two automatically linked windows.

If you work with the same workbooks every day, it will be helpful to open specific workbook files automatically whenever you start Excel. Any workbooks placed in the XLStart folder open automatically.

Like a regular text, the comment boxes can be formatted. Excel provides many formatting options and allows you to customize most aspects of its appearance, including color, border, and margins.

This tip describes how to use conditional formatting for comfortable viewing results in the worksheet.

Having your 25 most recently used workbooks on the File tab, in the Open menu is handy, but you may find it's not enough. You can increase the number shown up to 50, and you can pin (fasten) particular workbooks to the menu so that they remain there even if you haven't used them recently.

Excel includes a variety of built-in formats that cover general, numeric, currency, percentage, exponential, date, time, and custom numeric formats. You can also design custom formats based on one of the built-in formats.