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Spreadsheet Basics

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Saving Spreadsheet Data

1:33 with Michael Watson

One simple best practice that will save you lots of grief: save often, and make file backups.

Example Google Spreadsheet

Tip

Save your files beginning with a date formatted like this YYYYMMDD. For example: 20171020-myspreadsheet.xlxs (.xlxs is for Excel spreadsheets). This way you'll have your spreadsheets in chronological order on your computer.

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    It's a beautiful thing that Sheets automatically saves work for you. 0:00
    Unfortunately, not all your spreadsheet software will. 0:04
    Remember to save your work regularly. 0:07
    It's an awful feeling when you lose work because your machine crashes, and 0:09
    the last time you saved was four hours ago. 0:13
    Here in Sheets we can see that the last edit was made seconds ago, and 0:16
    if I make a change right up there in that same area, Fun, 0:19
    it saves automatically. 0:23
    Sometimes when you're working with a spreadsheet, you make a mistake but 0:28
    don't catch it. 0:31
    That's why it's best practice to use Save As for 0:32
    spreadsheet software that isn't Sheets. 0:34
    The formatting I like to use is year, month, date. 0:37
    this will keep things in chronological order on your machine. 0:40
    Don't see what I'm talking about? 0:43
    Pause this video and go create a bunch of different files in a folder on 0:45
    your computer with different date syntax, and see what happens. 0:48
    It's not pretty. 0:52
    [SOUND] This is what I do for saving files. 0:53
    For example, I have the same file, and I've saved it a bunch of different times. 0:56
    And what I'll do is I'll do the year, the month and the date, and then the version. 1:04
    So if I'm working with a file over the course of the same day, 1:11
    I might have multiple different versions on that day. 1:15
    This isn't as important when working with Sheets, but it's a super important and 1:18
    foundational best practice when working with spreadsheets. 1:22
    Ask your colleagues if there's a preferred file naming syntax where you work. 1:25
    It's important to be on the same page. 1:30

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