This year, I created a Google Sheets Advent Calendar, which you can see in action here:
It was a fun project with some interesting techniques, which are explored below.
You could easily modify it for your own example, or use these techniques in different scenarios.
Plus, if you’re too cheap to buy a physical advent calendar, this lets you enjoy the fun of opening a door each day to reveal something, but for free!
Continue reading Google Sheets Advent Calendar
This is a guest post from Josh Cottrell-Schloemer.
Google Sheets is an incredibly powerful spreadsheet tool for pulling, processing, and presenting data. But many people don’t realize that you can also use it to build interactive dashboards.
With a bit of creativity we can go from this:
To this:
The skills to build this type of dashboard aren’t difficult to learn and you can get started with a basic knowledge of Google Sheets.
Here’s a walkthrough of the dashboard shown above:
Continue reading Making Google Sheets look less like… Google Sheets
In this post, you’ll learn how to alternate colors in Google Sheets and add row or column banding to your data tables.
Here’s an example of alternating row bands applied to a checklist in Google Sheets:
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to add a subscript or superscript in Google Sheets.
All of the superscript and subscript characters and CHAR function equivalents are available in this free template:
Superscript Google Sheets Template
Open it and make your own copy from the menu: File > Make a copy
At the moment there is no built-in option to add a superscript in Google Sheets (or subscript), so we have to be creative to achieve the effect.
Here’s a list of superscripts, which you can copy:
| Character | Superscript |
|---|---|
| 0 | ⁰ |
| 1 | ¹ |
| 2 | ² |
| 3 | ³ |
| 4 | ⁴ |
| 5 | ⁵ |
| 6 | ⁶ |
| 7 | ⁷ |
| 8 | ⁸ |
| 9 | ⁹ |
| a | ᵃ |
| b | ᵇ |
| c | ᶜ |
| d | ͩ |
| e | ͤ |
| f | ᶠ |
| g | ᵍ |
| h | ͪ |
| i | ͥ |
| j | ʲ |
| k | ᵏ |
| l | ˡ |
| m | ͫ |
| n | ⁿ |
| o | ͦ |
| p | ᵖ |
| q | Not available (why?) |
| r | ͬ |
| s | ˢ |
| t | ͭ |
| u | ͧ |
| v | ͮ |
| w | ʷ |
| x | ˣ |
| y | ʸ |
| z | ᶻ |
| + | ⁺ |
| – | ⁻ |
| = | ⁼ |
| ( | ⁽ |
| ) | ⁾ |
The CHAR function converts a number into a character according to the current Unicode table.
It’s a fun and amazing function.
It lets you add weird and wonderful pictures to your Google Sheets using formulas, such as this Christmas tree (from my newsletter) or this turkey:
Anyway, I’m getting carried away. You came here to learn how to add a superscript not a turkey.
Back on the superscript two Graphemica page (see Method 1 above), copy the number part of the HTML Entity (Decimal), shown in red:
Enter this formula in your Google Sheet:
=CHAR(178)
With this in mind, here’s how you can create Einstein’s famous mass-energy formula:
="E = mc"&CHAR(178)
(Quick aside: You can use the CHAR function embedded in other formulas, like any other function.
For instance, here’s how to use the CHAR function to Create Custom Table Headers in Google Sheets Using Text Rotation.)
Add subscripts in the same way you added superscripts to your Google Sheets.
Search Graphemica and copy-paste the subscript into your Google Sheet, for example subscript two.
Here are the subscript characters:
| Character | Subscript |
|---|---|
| 0 | ₀ |
| 1 | ₁ |
| 2 | ₂ |
| 3 | ₃ |
| 4 | ₄ |
| 5 | ₅ |
| 6 | ₆ |
| 7 | ₇ |
| 8 | ₈ |
| 9 | ₉ |
| a | ₐ |
| e | ₑ |
| i | ᵢ |
| o | ₒ |
| r | ᵣ |
| u | ᵤ |
| v | ᵥ |
| x | ₓ |
| y | ᵧ |
| + | ₊ |
| – | ₋ |
| = | ₌ |
| ( | ₍ |
| ) | ₎ |
Consider the chemical makeup of water: two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, written H₂O.
In the same vein as the superscript example, you can use the CHAR function to create the subscript.
Using Graphemica, search for the subscript you want and take the number from the HTML Entity (Decimal):
Insert this into your CHAR function to create the subscript in Google Sheets:
=CHAR(8322)Building on this, the full formula for water is:
="H"&CHAR(8322)&"O"
Sugar Example
Here’s a more complex chemical compound — sugar — which has the molecular formula C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁
="C"&CHAR(8321)&CHAR(8322)&"H"&CHAR(8322)&CHAR(8322)&"O"&CHAR(8321)&CHAR(8321)
You can also achieve a subscript effect by changing the font size of the subscript digits in your text.
For example, setting the main text to font size 10 and the subscript to font size 6 will create a subscript effect.
However, I wouldn’t advocate this method because it’s tedious and not robust. But if you’re in a pinch and need a unique subscript that you can’t find elsewhere, maybe it’ll help you out.