MANAGEMENT YOGI: 15 Excel Like Features in Microsoft Project

In the part – 1 of this series, we discussed five excel like features in MS Project. They are:

Auto-filling of items
Insertion of multiple rows
Selection of Entire Row or Entire Column
Selection of a contiguous set of rows or a contiguous set of columns
Selection of a discontiguous set of rows or a discontiguous set of columns

In this part, we will see five more excel like features. I believe they are quite useful and helpful making you more proficient and productive with MS Project software.

This series: Part - 1

This series: Part - 3

Feature – 6: Selection of a set of cells in a mini-table area

Brief: You want to select a portion of table, i.e., mini-table, in any table of a view.

How to do: You can select a set of cells in this way.

Select the cell, press the “Shift” key and select the other cell.
All cells in that mini-table area will be selected.

Example: I’ve selected the cell of “Human Resource 2” as shown below.

Next, I want to select till the cell value of Material Resource 4’s “Std. Rate”. To do that:

First, hold the “Shift” key down.
Select the “Std. rate” cell of “Material Resource 4”.

All the cells in the mini-table area will be selected, which is shown below.

In Excel, you have exactly similar features for selection of area within the sheet.

Feature – 7: Selection till the end of a row or column from a particular cell

Brief: You want to have selection till the end of a row or till end of a column from a particular cell in a table in any view of MS Project.

How to do: First, note that it’s different from the “Feature – 3”, where I had mentioned the selection of the entire row (from the 1st cell in the left) or the entire column (from the header).

Here, the requirement is to select till the end a column or row from a particular cell. In order to do that:

Select the cell, press the “Control + Shift + Right Arrow” keys in the keyboard. It will select till the end of the row.
Select the cell, press the “Control + Shift + Bottom Arrow” keys in the keyboard. It will select till the end of the column.

Example: In the below “Gantt Chart” view, I’m currently in the Duration cells for A2 task.

Next, when I press “Control + Shift + Bottom Arrow” keys, it will select till the end of this column, i.e., the duration column. This is shown below.

You might be wondering, what's the use of that? Imagine having 100s of tasks and you want to format till the bottom from the current column's cell. How would you do it?

Similarly, when I press “Control + Shift + Right Arrow” keys, it will select till the end of this row, i.e., the row for Task ID – 3, which is shown below.

Feature – 8: Selection of an entire table

Brief: You want to select all the cells in a table in one go. This can happen in any view.

How to do: The entire table of any MS Project view can be selected, by left clicking on the top left corner.

Example: In the below “Task Sheet” view, I want to select the entire table. To do so, put your cursor over the top-left corner.

In fact, in the above screen, it is informing you that “Right-click” to select and change tables”. So, let select that highlight area (in Green as shown above), and right click. You will have all the cells in the table selected.

As you can see, the entire table is selected. The default one is the “Entry” table and it has been selected. Now you can switch to another table from here as well.

For example, I can switch to the “Schedule” table and it will come as shown below.

Feature – 9: Increasing the height of multiple rows or all rows!

Brief: You want to increase the height of multiple rows in a table.

How to do: You can increase the height of more than one row or all rows in any table of any view by selecting the rows and adjusting the heights.

Example: In the below “Gantt Chart” view, I want to select three rows and increase their heights, i.e., all rows will have similar height. In order to do that, select 3 rows and put the cursor over between two rows with the mouse cursor being a “two-headed vertical arrow”.

Next, drag any row to your desired height. All these selected rows will now be of similar heights. This is shown below.

To increase the heights of all the rows, select all the rows. (Tip: Use “Feature – 8” explained just before)

Next drag any one row to the desired height. All rows will be of similar heights, which is shown below.

Note: This feature is not applicable for columns in MS Project.

Feature – 10: Auto-fitting the content

Brief: You want to auto-fit the content within the width of a column or height of a row, so that the text in the cell is not wrapped.

How to do: You can fit the content with the exact width of a column. You can do similar things for a row in any table.

Example: In the below “Task Sheet” view, I want to auto-fit the width of columns. First, I’ve increased the widths of two columns as shown below.

As you can see, the widths of columns “Task Name” and “Start” are increased in size. I want to make them fit into the exact size needed. For that:

Put your mouse cursor at the end of the column name till it turns into a “two-headed horizontal arrow”.
Then, do a double click.

This series: Part - 1

This series: Part - 3

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Articles on MS Project:

MANAGEMENT YOGI

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Wednesday, May 27, 2020

15 Excel Like Features in Microsoft Project – Part 2

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