6 quick tips for Google Sheets

If you’re new to Google Sheets, our Google Sheets cheat sheet can quickly get you up and running with the popular web-based spreadsheet app. Once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to dig in with a few intermediate tips.

We’ll guide you through a fast way to clean up your data; how named ranges can help you navigate large spreadsheets; how to embed contact info and dropdown lists in cells; why and how to use filters and slicers; and more. The features covered in this story are available in Sheets to anyone with a Google account — no subscription required.

In this article:

Clean up your data

Navigate your spreadsheet faster with named ranges

Add contacts or calendar events to your spreadsheet

Use dropdowns for guided responses

Zero in on key data with filters and slicers

Present your spreadsheet in Google Meet

1. Clean up your data

Google Sheets can help you check and edit the data consistency of your spreadsheet. On the menu bar at the top, click Data > Data cleanup > Cleanup suggestions. A panel will open to the right of the screen.

This tool analyzes your spreadsheet and offers suggestions to improve its look and performance, such as adding formatting to numbers, deleting duplicate rows, fixing inconsistent data, and more. Try this out if you have an old, complex spreadsheet that could use a review and freshening up.

Sheets can offer suggestions for cleaning up your spreadsheet.
Howard Wen / Foundry

2. Navigate your spreadsheet faster with named ranges

If your spreadsheet has several sheets, or a single sheet that’s so large it can’t be seen all at once in the main window without scrolling, use the “Named ranges” tool to design it for easier navigating.

To open this tool, click Data > Named ranges from the menu bar. Or, toward the upper left of your spreadsheet, click the small upside-down triangle and select Manage named ranges. This opens a “Named ranges” panel along the right.

With this panel open, click a cell or select a range of cells in your spreadsheet. You’ll see the cell or range of cells denoted in the second entry box on the right. Type in a name for this cell or range of cells, then click Done. To add more named ranges, click Add a range in the panel and repeat the process. In this way, you can build a list of other named cells and cell ranges.

Naming cells or ranges can help you find them fast later.
Howard Wen / Foundry

From then on, whenever you open this “Named ranges” panel, or click the upside-down triangle at the upper left of your spreadsheet, you’ll be able to jump your view of the spreadsheet to a cell or cell range that you named.

You can edit an existing named range at any time by opening the panel and clicking the pencil icon to the right of the range you want to change. Now you can rename it or select a different range of cells, then click Ok and then Done.

3. Add contacts or calendar events to your spreadsheet

You can insert a mini profile card for someone in your Google contacts into a cell in your spreadsheet. Type the @ symbol inside a cell to open a panel that lists a few suggested people in your contacts. Or you can type the person’s name or their email address to pull them up from your contacts. Click the person’s name and it’ll be inserted into the cell.

(If you try to add someone who doesn’t have access to the spreadsheet, you’ll be guided through the steps of inviting them.)

This is handy in scenarios where a particular person is in charge of one of the items being tracked in the spreadsheet, for example. When you hover the pointer over the cell with their name, a mini profile card for them will pop up. On it, you can click links to email this person, start a chat message or video call with them, or add them to an event on your calendar.

Mini profile cards provide quick ways to contact someone right from a spreadsheet.
Howard Wen / Foundry

This profile card is known as a “smart chip.” You can insert smart chips into cells that contain other information, such as an event scheduled on your Google calendar or a stock price that’s updated in real time. On the toolbar above your spreadsheet, select Insert > Smart chips to see these and other smart chips.

See our in-depth smart chips guide for more info on the various types of smart chips and how to use them in Google Docs and Sheets.

4. Use dropdowns for guided responses

One of the most useful types of smart chip is the dropdown list, a button that lets users of your spreadsheet select from a small number of preset options. For example, you could have a dropdown with various status stages for a project (Not started, Assigned, In progress, etc.) or one that lists specific numeric percentages. Having people select an item from a list rather than typing into a cell saves time and reduces the chance of typos and other errors.

Dropdown chips display options for spreadsheet users to choose from.
Howard Wen / Foundry

To add a dropdown, place your cursor in the cell you want it to appear in, and choose Insert > Dropdown. The “Data validation rules” panel opens on the right. Here you can type in the text for the items in your dropdown, add more items, assign a color to each item in the list, and more. See “Google Sheets power tips: How to use dropdown lists” for step-by-step instructions.

5. Zero in on key data with filters and slicers

Large spreadsheets can be overwhelming, so it’s helpful to apply filters to a sheet when you want to focus on one type of data or on items that meet certain criteria. For instance, you can create a filter for a sales spreadsheet that hides any transactions below $5,000, allowing you to quickly zoom in on higher-value sales.

A slicer is similar, but it’s a toolbar that you embed into your spreadsheet. Anyone viewing your spreadsheet can interact with the toolbar to filter the spreadsheet data in various ways.

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Howard Wen / Foundry

In a nutshell, you insert a filter by selecting a range of cells to apply the filter to, click Data > Create a filter from the top menu, and then fill out a panel with the criteria you want to apply to your filter. Inserting a slicer is fairly similar, but you start by selecting Data > Add a slicer. For complete instructions for both, see “Google Sheets power tips: How to use filters and slicers.”

6. Present your spreadsheet in Google Meet

One way to solicit feedback on your spreadsheet is to present it during a Google Meet meeting. Toward the upper right of your spreadsheet, click the camera icon. On the panel that opens, click to enter a meeting that’s scheduled on your Google calendar today, or type or paste in the web link or code that you have for another meeting.

For more details about using Google Meet, including collaborating with it, see our Google Meet cheat sheet.

More Google Sheets tips:

Google Workspace: 7 great ways to use the Gemini AI sidebar

How to use Google Sheets for project management

Google Sheets power tips: How to use pivot tables

4 advanced ‘smart chip’ tips for Google Docs and Sheets

Google Sheets: Create an automatically updating spreadsheet

Google Workspace power tips: Tap into cross-app productivity

More Google Workspace tips and tutorials