Category Archives for Tips

Excel TV Episode 2: How to become an Excel MVP – with guest Kari Finn

Excel TV: Episode 1

Checkout my new project, Excel TV

Checkout my interview with Rick Grantham, Small Business Champion!

Watch part 1 of my interview with Rick Grantham: Follow this link for the full article.     

Excel Dashboard Course

As you might imagine, I often get approached to promote Excel material. As a general rule, I don’t promote products that I don’t really know anything about. So if I promote something, it’s because I believe in it. Today, I want to recommend the Excel Dashboard Course by Mynda Treacy over at MyOnlineTrainingHub.com. And if […]

Miami Valley XL User Group

Based on the great reception Rob Collie has had in Cleveland, I am attempting to create an XL User Group here in the Miami Valley area. Do you live in our around Dayton, Cincinnati, or Columbus? Would you be interested in attending/hosting an Excel user group in these areas? If so, please send me your […]

Creating a Spreadsheet-Based Wizard

First of all, happy spreadsheet day! It was on this date today that VisiCalc was first shipped to the masses. The rest, as they say, is history. So let’s talk about creating a spreadsheet-based wizard. By “spreadsheet-based,” I mean no Userforms. That’s right. There are many good Excel tutorials out there on developing wizards with […]

The two WORST Excel Errors EVER

In my opinion, these are the two worst Excel errors ever: Code execution has been interrupted, and There was a problem sending the command to the program A casual Google search will show these errors are as common as they are arcane. Below I’m going to detail my experiences with these errors and how I’ve […]

An Alternate Tip: Removing Blanks Rows from a List in a Spreadsheet

You were handed a spreadsheet of exported data from some legacy system. The data aren’t in one continuous list but rather blank rows appear randomly throughout. You’d really like to get rid of those blank rows. This isn’t a new problem for Excel. The most common approach to remove these blanks is to: Select the […]

Two Great Applications of Rollovers

I want to highlight two applications of the rollover technique that are really quite phenomenal. Square Charts and Treemaps in Excel If you haven’t seen the work of the Frankens Team yet – you’re missing out. They’re a group of…geniuses, really…who investigate and push Excel’s limit. Very recently, they wrote on the development of square […]

Recommendation: Excel School + Excel Hero Academy Bundle

Chandoo (of Chandoo.org) and Daniel Ferry (of ExcelHero.com) are kicking-off their new Excel School and Excel Hero Academy. If you really want to learn Excel—and I mean learn Excel—I recommend their new courses. It’s true; I’ve never taken a course from either of them. However, much of what you see on this website is a direct […]

Handling Rollover Clicks Without Using the Worksheet_SelectionChange Event

You probably noticed a “bug” while playing around with my Interactive Periodic Table of Elements in Excel. When you click down into the Table of Elements (or really, anywhere on the sheet), one of the chemical classifications will become “selected,” despite your not having clicked on it directly. This happens because I’ve used the ScrollArea […]

Investigations in "Illegal Activities" with User Defined Functions

A group of fellow Excel experts who call themselves the Frankens Team were encouraged by the rollover method to investigate other known instances in which Excel has allowed for the impossible; namely, allowing UDFs to change the value of other cells. I invite everyone to view their terrific analysis: Excel formula to change the value of […]

Investigations in "Illegal Activities" with User Defined Functions

A group of fellow Excel experts who call themselves the Frankens Team were encouraged by the rollover method to investigate other known instances in which Excel has allowed for the impossible; namely, allowing UDFs to change the value of other cells. I invite everyone to view their terrific analysis: Excel formula to change the value of […]

The Excel Rollover Mini FAQ

As more people are use the rollover method (or “Interactive Hyperlinks” as Chandoo calls them), I thought it might be helpful to answer common questions I’ve seen popping up on forums. So, in no particular order, I present the Excel Rollover Mini FAQ! 1. Are there example articles and spreadsheets on how to use Excel […]

Needs More Rollover: Quick Tip!

More people are interested in Excel mouse rollovers, which I think is great. I’m especially enthusiastic about Chandoo’s latest dashboard contest where I found out that several contestants used the technique! By the way, there are many great dashboards showcased in the contest. Take a look and make sure to vote! So here’s the tip. If […]