Guides

Each one covers a whole topic rather than a single task — every condition SUMIF accepts, every way to count characters, everything IMPORTRANGE does and refuses to do. Formulas for Excel and Google Sheets side by side, and a note wherever the two products genuinely differ.

XMATCH, explained properly

XMATCH returns the position of a value, with exact, approximate, wildcard and reverse-search modes. How it differs from MATCH, and when to use it over XLOOKUP.

4 sections · 5 questions answered

How to count characters in Excel and Google Sheets

LEN counts characters in one cell; SUMPRODUCT counts across a range; SUBSTITUTE counts one specific character. Every variant with a worked example.

5 sections · 5 questions answered

SUMIF with every condition type

Every SUMIF condition that trips people up — exact dates, date ranges, non-blank cells, partial text, and why summing by cell colour needs a different approach entirely.

6 sections · 5 questions answered

IMPORTRANGE, end to end

How IMPORTRANGE works, why it breaks, how to combine it with QUERY and text functions — and what to use in Excel, which has no equivalent function.

4 sections · 5 questions answered

How to test whether a cell contains text

There is no CONTAINS function. Use ISNUMBER with SEARCH for a case-insensitive test, COUNTIF with wildcards for a shorter one, and FIND when case matters.

5 sections · 5 questions answered

VLOOKUP with wildcards

How to use * and ? in VLOOKUP for partial matches, why the fourth argument must be FALSE, and how to escape a literal asterisk in the lookup value.

4 sections · 5 questions answered

How to sum hours and time

SUM works on times until the total passes 24 hours, then it wraps to zero. The [h]:mm format fixes it. Timesheets, decimal hours and overnight shifts explained.

5 sections · 5 questions answered

Fixing "Formula parse error"

Google Sheets shows "Formula parse error" when it cannot read the formula at all. The causes are mechanical — brackets, separators, smart quotes — and each has a specific fix.

7 sections · 5 questions answered