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Excel - Boost Your Excel Calculation Speed 100x! Tips from Chas. Williams White Paper - Episode 1011

312 views · Published 11 May 2009 · 3:35 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial - Boost Your Excel Calculation Speed 100x! Tips from Chas. Williams White Paper.

Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast. In this episode, we will be discussing the topic of calculation speed in Excel. As we all know, dealing with massive amounts of data can be a daunting task. But fear not, because we have some tips and tricks to help you analyze your data more efficiently.

To start off, we will be using a pivot table to analyze our data. But before we dive into that, I want to give a special shout-out to Mike Girvin for pointing me towards a fantastic white paper by Charles Williams titled "Improving Performance in Excel 2007". This 50-page document delves into various issues related to calculation speed and offers some valuable insights.

Now, let's get back to our pivot table. I have a challenge for you - can you solve this problem? We need to add a running total to a column with 10,000 rows. How would you go about doing this? I've seen many people use the traditional method of entering one formula and then copying it down, but I have a better solution for you.

In the white paper, Charles Williams talks about the calculation speed of different methods. And here's where it gets interesting - the seemingly more sophisticated formula may not always be the fastest. Let's take a look at an example. We have a range of cells that need to be calculated, and using the traditional method, it takes 1.1969 seconds. But using a simpler formula, it only takes 0.018 seconds - that's a hundred times faster!

So, what's the secret behind this faster calculation speed? It all comes down to the number of references each cell has to look at. The simpler formula has fewer references, making it much faster to calculate. This is just one of the many insights shared in Charles Williams' white paper, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the MrExcel netcast. I hope you found these tips helpful in improving your calculation speed in Excel. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more Excel tips and tricks. And as always, a big thank you to Charles Williams for his fantastic white paper. See you next time!

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Mike Girven pointed me to an excellent whitepaper by Charles Williams about calculation speed. In Episode 1011, an example contrasting different ways of entering running totals. One calculates 100 times faster than the other!

This video is the podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel 97-2007 from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 377 tips from the book!

Table of Contents:
performance in Excel 2007
(00:00) Adding a running total using different methods
(01:18) Comparison of calculation speeds for different methods
(02:11) Example of a faster calculation method
(03:12) Clicking Like really helps the algorithm

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