Excel names new tables Table1, Table2 and so on. A real name such as OvertimeLog makes formulas readable, OvertimeLog[Hours], and lets other tools find the table. Rename it in the Table Name box on the Table Design tab.
An Excel table is more than colours. It gives your rows a name, a filter button on every heading, and columns whose formulas fill down by themselves, and it grows when you add a row. Home → Format As Table turns a plain range into one.
Auto Fit Column Width makes each selected column exactly as wide as its longest entry. In Excel for the web it's under Home → Format. Select the columns first, and one click fixes dates showing as ######## and text cut off at the edge of its cell.
Text where values are separated by tabs, one row per line, pastes into Excel as a table: each tab moves to the next column and each line to the next row. Copy it, select the cell where the first value should go, and press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac).
When a shift starts one day and ends the next, it's easier to keep the date and the time together. Type them into one cell with a space between, like 24/10/2026 22:00, and Excel stores a single value that's the date plus the time.
The Name Box is the small box at the left end of the formula bar. It shows which cell is selected, and you can type an address into it to select that cell or range: B7, B2:C4, or a whole set of columns like A:H. It's faster than scrolling or dragging, and exact.
The quickest way to type rows of data is with the keyboard: Tab finishes a cell and moves right, Enter finishes a cell and moves down. In Excel for the web, Enter moves down from the cell you're in, not back to the column the row started in, so press Home to get back to column A.
Excel for the web decides how to read a typed date like 02/10/2026 from its regional format. Set to English (United States), that's 10 February; set to English (United Kingdom), it's 2 October. Change it before you enter any dates: File → Options → Regional Settings.
A workbook created in OneDrive starts out as Book. You can rename it from inside Excel for the web: select the name at the top of the page, type the new one and press Enter.
You don't need the Excel app to start a workbook. From any folder in OneDrive, Create or upload → Excel workbook opens a blank workbook in Excel for the web, and it's saved in that folder from the first moment.
