Ireland’s Diarmuid Early wins world Microsoft Excel title

My best Excel trick, which reveals how little I know, and yet Early [0] doesn't use it (or maybe doesn't need it, but that's hard to believe):

1. You can drag down the bottom of the formula bar/field and make it multi-line

2. You can insert arbitrary[*] newlines in an Excel formula

Combining those, you can turn the absurd default format of single-line-of-code functions into something readable and manageable. Here's a simple one from a spreadsheet I have open:

  =INDEX(
  $C$17:$S$24,
  MATCH(A6,$A$17:$A$24,0),
  MATCH(C6,$C$15:$S$15,0)
  )

And just think of highly nested functions. Once you know it, writing single-line functions of any complexity is absurd, as absurd as writing 'real' code that way.

[0] Early shows how it was done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46340638

[*] I think you can do it anywhere but I haven't tested anything crazy; mostly I just use them between expressions.

It could be that in a competitive context fussing with formatting would cost precious seconds. Great general tip for us mortals though.