Excel Tips, Examples, and Tutorials

Here on Contextures, you'll find clear Excel tips, step-by-step tutorials, helpful videos, and sample files to download, based on practical examples.

There are links below, to help you get started, and check the Excel Tips Index page for links to specific topics

What's for Supper: Every week, I make a meal plan in Excel, and post it on my food blog. You can go to the blog for the latest meal plan file, and more details. Dec 8, 2025

Excel Checkbox Survey: Create a simple checkbox survey with 3 questions, rated from 1 to 5, using checkboxes. Data validation prevents multiple checks per question. Mar 1, 2025.

I show a quick demo in this short video.

PIVOTBY Function: See how the new Excel PIVOTBY function works, and test the settings for optional arguments, such as how to sort the data, and where to show totals. Feb 24, 2025

Printable Calendar - Type year and month number, to create a printable Excel calendar with the month's holidays highlighted. Or, get the printable event calendar - it shows 5 events per day.

Count Blanks - In a pivot table, see how to count blanks in source data cells. Fix problem, get correct count of empty cells. Video, written steps, Excel file

Bingo Cards - Create printable sets of 3 unique Bingo cards, filled with numbers or pictures. There are written steps, and 4 different Excel files to download

Business Task Tracker -- To help your small business grow, give yourself a 30-day task challenge! Use my example tasks, or add your own. Click this link to download the Excal business task tracker

Treasure Hunt: I've updated my Treasure Hunt Game, with new formulas and lots more emoji choices! Apr 17, 2025

Upcoming Meeting Dates: Enter a start date, and formulas calculate the upcoming committee meeting dates and times. Click this link to download the Meeting Dates workbook.

More Workbooks: For even more sample files, go to the Excel Sample Files page, where there are 200+ files for you to choose from.

Excel Topics

Here are a few of the most popular Excel topics that I cover in my tutorials and videos. You can also check the Excel Tips Index page for links to specific topics.

Pivot Tables -- Use Excel Pivot Tables to quickly summarize data from a list or Excel table. See how to get started, then learn more about the power of pivot tables!

To learn more, go to the Excel Pivot Table topic page.

Formulas - Use Excel formulas and functions to summarize data, return values from a lookup table, do mathematical calculations, and much more!

To learn more, go to the Excel Formulas topic page.

Data Validation -- Use the Excel data validation feature to create drop down lists on a worksheet. Or, use data validation rules to control what can be entered into worksheet cells.

To learn more, go to the Excel Data Validation topic page.

I'm Debra Dalgleish, the founder of Contextures, located in Ontario, Canada.

Click here to learn more about me, and my Contextures site.