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Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #384, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!

Normally with these Google Sheets Tips, I make them as practical as possible, so that you can apply them to your work.

Today, however, I'm going to show you The Ultimate Spreadsheet Prank as a way of understanding how custom number formats work.

And if that doesn't float your spreadsheet boat, well then, I don't know what will.

Find this tutorial below the news and a message from this week's sponsor.

➜ News

I.
Notebooks are coming to Gemini. Not to be confused with NotebookLM, these new notebooks are a dedicated space to keep conversations on certain topics organized. They're more than just folders, however, because they can hold custom instructions and be synced both ways with NotebookLM.

They are launching this week, starting with the top-tier AI plans. However, it does not appear they will be available on the free tier of Gemini.

​Read more here >>

II.
​The Google Sheets team added greater control and error visibility for a subset of Google Sheets formulas, including statistical functions like FREQUENCY.

​Read more here >>​

III.
​When I first read this, I wasn't sure if it was some sort of late April Fool's joke, but it seems that Looker Studio is reverting back to its original name, Data Studio, from when it launched ten years ago!

You'll be able to say, "let's use Data studio formerly known as Looker Studio formerly known as Data Studio".

​Read more here >>​

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➜ Sheets Tip #384: Make your Sheet invisible

In this tip, we look at how to make the contents of your Sheet disappear!

Everytime you try to enter numbers or text, they vanish, as if by magic 🪄

Now, obviously, you're all too professional to play this trick on a coworker, but you have to admit it would make for a rather good spreadsheet prank 😉.

How To Make Your Sheet Invisible

First, highlight the whole Sheet by clicking on the square to the left of column A and above row 1:

Then go to the menu:

Format > Number > Custom number format

Make their text invisible by setting the custom number format to three semi-colons:

which looks like this in the custom number format popup:

Click Apply.

This makes the positive, negative, zero, and text values all blank. (The semi-colons are the rule separators, which are still required.)

Knowing this, you can also force other values instead of blanks.

For example, perhaps a Sheet where every value turns into an emoji is even more annoying!

To create this, follow the steps above, but set the custom formatting rule your favorite emoji, for example:

How To Reset The Formatting

To reset the number formatting, click on the "123" in the toolbar and then select "Automatic":

Or use version history (under the File menu) to return to a prior version.

Takeaways

Now that you've seen how semicolons define specific rules, you can apply custom number formatting to create a wide array of specialized styles.

For example, you can apply colors and brackets to format numbers like an accountant, with this rule:

Negative numbers will then be formatted like this:

For even more (practical) uses for the amazing custom number format feature, have a read here:

​A Complete Guide To The Google Sheets Custom Number Format​

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. An incredible photo to cap an incredible mission.​