SPREADSHEET TIPS & TRICKS: The F5 Key (Part 2 of 2)

Hit the F5 Key on your Keyboard within an Excel Spreadsheet and click the Special... button to show the tool in the below screenshots.

The Special... key is a powerful search and identification tool within Excel. To set the scene, when building a financial model, one must know which cells contain formulas and which cells contain hard coded data (numbers punched in manually). The creator of the model will not want new users to overtype the cells that contain formulas with hard coded numbers, otherwise formulas will be lost. To avoid this, the financial modeller will use a colour coding system, whereby all "entry" cells are filled in yellow and have blue coloured text, and all cells that contain formulas, and therefore are not to be overtyped, are left with a black font and clear cell colouring.

The screenshot shows an example of a completed DCF model. However, there lies one problem for the creator of this model, in that he or she cannot quickly remember which cells contain formulas and which are hard coded.