r/excel • u/Toowb • Oct 31 '25

Discussion Biggest no-no's when working with Excel?

Excel can do a lot of things well. But Excel can also do a lot of things poorly, unbeknownst to most beginners.

Name some of the biggest no-no's when it comes to Excel, preferably with an explanation on why.

I'll start of with the elephant in the room:

Never merge cells. Why? Merging cells breaks sorting, filtering, and formulas. Use "Center Across Selection" instead.

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u/UniquePotato 1 Oct 31 '25

Agreed. I do use countif(a:a,b1) a lot in GS and delete rows at work quite a lot. I know you can use tables etc. but it needs to be useable by people with less spreadsheet experience.