Thanks to Dennis Wallentin for another article:

Paste Special Dialog – Operating on a Range of Data

For some of you this is already known, but I know there are users who are not aware of the power of the Paste Special Dialog.

Suppose you have been asked to create a budget for next year. The budget will be based on last year’s sales figures and the budget should be 10% more than last year.

As usual, there are several ways to skin a cat. A quick method to achieve it is to use the Paste Special Dialog. The following screen shot shows the details:

• First we enter 1.1 (which represents the 10% increase) in an empty cell in the worksheet.
• Next we copy the source, i.e. the cell that holds the value.
• Then we select the targeted range of data that is to be increased with 10%.
• Next we select the command Paste Special… from the menu by Right Clicking on the targeted range.
• In the Dialog we select the operation Multiply and then hit the OK button.

The output of the operation is showed in the following screen shot:

In my opinion this is an excellent way to quickly update a range of data.

Recently I made a suggestion to improve the operation. Instead of using a cell in a worksheet as the source I suggested to add a numeric field in the Paste Special Dialog. The following picture shows the idea:

If You think it’s a good idea, then I suggest that You vote for it at UserVoice:
https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/17352001-paste-special-add-a-numeric-field-when-using-one

Enjoy!
Thanks and all the best,
Dennis

I got a new computer at work. This is how big it is.

It’s got an i7-6700T @2.8GHz and 16GB or RAM. All in that little box. It also has Windows 10, which I’m finding quite acceptable. I guess I should have upgraded my home computer when it was free. I’m opposed to Microsoft’s Windows 10 revenue model on principal and that really hasn’t changed.

The other major change is that I have Office 2010 64 bit. You can read some of my comments at the bottom of this post. To be fair, Microsoft doesn’t recommend installing 64 bit unless you have a specific reason. I don’t have a good reason, I just want Excel to address as much memory as possible. And it does. And it’s super-fast. Except when it crashes. My email to IT reads as follows:

I give up. Office 64bit sucks. When you have time, I’d like it uninstalled and 32bit installed.

Thanks,
Dick

Finally, I’m making the switch from Firefox to Chrome. It’s been an adjustment, but generally I like it. My biggest blocks to switching have been Type Ahead Find and the treatment of diverted tabs. I installed an extension called Type-ahead Find that takes care of the first problem. And I installed an extension called Inoreader Companion which takes care of the second problem within Inoreader. The vast majority of diverted tabs for me happen in Inoreader. I still don’t like how Ctrl+Click opens the tab just to the right rather than at the end, but it’s only a minor annoyance and I’ll get used to it.

Here are the rest of the settings I make when I do a clean install.

Windows

• Pin programs to taskbar.

  

  That’s Outlook, Chrome, Excel, an RDP to our accounting software, SQL Server Management Studio, and Notepad++. I leave Outlook running all the time so it processes my client side rules. I start the rest of them each morning by holding down the Windows key and typing 23456. Everyone in my office closes the entire application when they’re done with it (except Outlook). That means every time they want to work in Excel, they start Excel. They don’t have 16 GB of RAM, either, so it takes a few seconds. I just don’t understand why they don’t leave it running all day.

• Uncheck Hide Extensions for Known File Types
• Check Show Hidden Files. I did these the old fashioned way, but have discovered that they are on the View menu in Windows Explorer. They’re called File name extensions and Hidden items. Just another little Windows 10 convenience. Although I still argue that File extensions should be on by default.
• I use Ctrl+Alt+Down and Ctrl+Alt+Right for a couple of Excel macros so I can’t have them rotating my screen around.

  

Excel

• Uncheck Show Mini Toolbar on Selection
• Include this many sheets = 1
• Uncheck Use GetPivotData functions for PivotTable references
• Turn off Autocorrect – Replace as you type: Internet and network paths with hyperlinks
• Uncheck Allow editing directly in cells
• Uncheck Show paste options button when content is pasted
• Show this number of Recent Documents = 50
• Uncheck Show all windows in taskbar
• Add Max and Min to Status bar

  

Visual Basic Editor

• Tools – Options – Break in Class Modules
• Uncheck Auto Syntax Check
• Check Require variable declaration
• Comments to gray and Keywords to green. I don’t write a ton of comments. I’m a proponent of writing self-documenting code and only commenting when necessary. But when I do comment, I certainly don’t want it slapping me in the face. If I need clarification, I’ll look for comments. Otherwise I prefer not to see them. I realize there are others in the VBA community who have the exact opposite opinion. I’m in favor of people having opinions about programming in VBA even if I don’t share them.

  

• Add CommentBlock and Uncomment Block to Tools menu

  

Outlook

• Compose messages in this format: Plain Text
• When a new message arrives Play a sound – off
• When a new message arrives Briefly change the mouse pointer – off
• When a new message arrives Display a Desktop Alert – off
• Check When replying to a message that is not in the inbox, save the reply to the same folder
• Check Always send a read receipt. I hate that some people always request read receipts. But I also hate that prompt, so I just gave in.

SQL Prompt

• Add space as special character
• Put commas as start of row
• Put space after comma
• Add snippet gob = GROUP BY $PASTE$ ORDER BY $PASTE$ I have to copy the SELECT list for this to work. I wish I could make it work without copying. That is, it would group by and order by everything in the SELECT list that wasn’t an aggregate.
• Add snippet ssfgross = SELECT * FROM dbo.OSASGrossMargin_vw WHERE GLYear = $DATE(yyyy)$ Just a query I start with a lot. We’re a fiscal year end, so the $DATE$ variable doesn’t quite work.

One last word about 64 bit office. You can’t program the menus in the VBE as I documented here. My temporary fix for that was going to be AutoHotKey. This is bad, so be sure to plug your nose if you choose to consider reading. Here’s my AHK script:

I’d go to the Immediate Window and type, for example, vbPrivate. It would expand into an Application Run statement and I’d press Enter to execute. I told myself that this is how I would access these procedures until I was able to rewrite this as COM add-in or a .Net thingy or however people automate the VBE these days. I’m pretty sure I would have just kept using this method and never actually rewrote it. Now that I’m switching back to 32 bit, it’s a non-issue.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this small glimpse into my computing life.

Recently some guys I work with started using Todoist. It’s a todo list application with collaboration features. They set me up with an account and I tried it for a month. Here’s what I learned.

I’m sticking with GoodTodo. Sorry for the early spoiler, but since this is an Excel blog, some of you may not care about the details.

I meant to post this earlier, but never got around to it. Then I got an email that GoodTodo is raising their prices. It’s still a good deal to me. The email just reminded me to get off my butt and post my review. Also, my “really inexpensive” comment from six years ago needs to me modified to “moderately inexpensive”.

One thing before I get to the details: I’m only evaluating these applications based on features I care about. I don’t care about collaboration, so Todoist doesn’t get any points from me. If you care about collaboration, well, we’re different then.

Exporting
Remind me never to write mystery novels. I’ve already told you I’m sticking with GoodTodo and now I’m starting with the number one reason why. Anytime I want, I can send all my past, present, and future todos from GoodTodo to my inbox. Not so much with Todoist. Their export feature doesn’t export completed todos nor does it export the comments associated with the todos.

They do have an API. Presumably I could write my own code to get whatever I want, but that was beyond what I was willing to do.

This was a deal breaker for me. It’s my data even if it’s on your server and you shouldn’t restrict my access to it.

Point: GoodTodo

Entering Todos
GoodTodo has a feature where if you send an email to today@goodtodo.com from an email it recognizes, it will create a todo from the email. It supports all kinds of email addresses like tomorrow@, nextfriday@, and even specific dates.

As I’ve used GoodTodo over the years, I literally only send things to “today” and I move them from within the site if I need to. The fact that I don’t use this feature to it’s fullest doesn’t mean it’s not useful. I just means Mark did a lot of email parsing code that I never use. I still email todos quite a bit.

The downside to entering emails is that the subject of the email becomes the title of the todo. It’s pretty rare that I would have titled my todo like that if I were creating it from scratch, particularly if the email originated from someone else. I’m pretty careful with my email subjects, but I’m the exception, not the rule. If the subject is particularly egregious, I can just change the title in GoodTodo. If it’s good enough, I generally don’t.

Todoist does not support emailing to your list. If I had an email that I needed to put on my todo list, I copied the contents and pasted it into a new todo. That’s not as convenient as forwarding, but it honestly wasn’t that bad.

Todoist does support keyboard shortcuts in its web app. I had a twitter back-and-forth with them about how I couldn’t do certain things without the mouse, the result of which was I figured out how to do everything I need with the keyboard. It’s clunky. Things lose focus and, in one case, I have to attempt to close the todo without saving, cancel the close when I get the “save now?” message, and that returns the focus to where I need it. Not great, but workable.

Goodtodo has no keyboard shortcuts. I can navigate fairly well with my normal web page navigating tricks, but there is at least one task where I must use the mouse.

Point: A slight edge to Todoist because I’m a keyboard freak.

Editing Todos
GoodTodo provides a title field and a description field. I use the description field to record what I’ve done and what my next action is. It’s all freeform with no real structure. I have an AutoHotKey so that if I press Ctrl+; it enters the current date wherever I am, not just in Excel. So a todo might look like this:

Basically it’s a date stamp with something I’ve done (like EM (meaning I emailed someone)) and a bunch of NAs (next actions) for what I need to do next. It works and it’s fine.

Todoist has comments that are time stamped. I didn’t have to put the date next to my action, it was already done. That was pretty handy. I also like the structure of comments being a separate entity from the todo item.

Point: Slight edge to Todoist, but I can live with either one

Completing Todos
When you complete a todo in Todoist, it goes away. And it’s really hard to find after that. It’s there and you can get to it, but it’s not easy.

GoodTodo puts a checkmark next to it and moves it to the bottom of the page. If you want to know what you’ve done today, scroll down. If you want see what you did yesterday, navigate to that page and see what’s checked off.

It probably doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it turned out to be important to me.

Point: GoodTodo

Not Completing Todos
Yes, this does happen from time to time. If I don’t get something done today, GoodTodo moves it to tomorrow sometime after I’ve gone to bed (I think).

Todoist still shows me the todo, but it’s under a heading with the date it was added. It’s a lot of wasted space and clutter. Just because I added a todo on a certain day doesn’t mean it has anything to do with that day. I have four things left on my today todo list and I’m not going to get to any of them. I put them on there in case I did get to them, not because they were due today.

Point: GoodTodo

So I’m sticking with GoodTodo. I’d love to have a todo list app written just for me and maybe someday I will. It will have the rolling forward of GoodTodo, the timestamped comments of Todoist, the keyboard shortcuts of Todoist but slightly better, and most importantly I can export all my data any time.

I found this nice plugin called wp-markdown. It lets you write DDoE comments like Stackoverflow answers, that is, markdown with preview. But it doesn’t work with my 10 year old theme.

I’m sure I’ve needed a new theme for a while. But if you’re like me, and you probably are if you’re reading this, you don’t like change. Now get off my lawn.

So if I switch to a fancy new theme, wp-markdown works. Seriously, try leaving a comment at the end of this post and see how awesome it is.

I don’t know why themes don’t take up the whole screen. I hate it when the words are all squished. I paid for a 22″ monitor and I want to use it!

I’ll leave this new theme up for a few days and see how it goes. In the meantime, I’ll still be looking for a new theme that looks and acts more like the old one.

Do you live in Wellington, practically *live* in Micosoft Excel, day in, day out, and want an opportunity to pick up tips, tricks, hacks, and code from other Excellers? Have some tricks of your own to pass on? Need a second opinion on an approach you’re taking with a spreadsheet, or help untangling the monster mission-critical minefield of an XLSX file you just inherited?

If so, then boy do I have a group for you: I’ve just set up a dedicated Excel-focused meetup group at http://www.meetup.com/Wellington-Microsoft-Excel-Meetup/ that is just itching for folks like you to join. This Excel-centric group will pretty much cover the spectrum in terms of Excel’s incredibly deep functionality: Formulas, Tables, PivotTables, Charting, PowerPivot, PowerQuery, VBA, spreadsheet auditing and optimisation, dashboarding tips, information visualisation , the works.

I’m in the process of securing a venue for the first meetup, so expect to see more details soon. (And if you can help out with a venue, let me know).

At the same time I’ve come across Phil Seamark’s PowerBI group that has its first meetup on Wednesday at TradeMe. See http://www.meetup.com/Power-BI-User-Group-Wellington-NZ/ for details). No matter where your interest lies on the Excel/PowerPivot/PowerBI spectrum, between us we’ll have you covered. (I’ll be at the PowerBI event on Wednesday night at Trademe, and would love to see you there.)

So regardless of whether you’re a VLOOKUP virgin, or a VBA Virtuoso, a PivotTable pariah, or a PowerBI Professional, between these two groups we’ll have community led content, comment, and camaraderie relevant to you, your job, and your career.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up TODAY()

At first I wasn’t going to. I live in Wellington, which is 636 km to the south. (395 miles, to those of you in the dark ages). And this being Middle Earth, to get there by road I would have had to run the gauntlet of Goblins, Orcs, and cliche tourists like Zack Barrasse likely driving on the wrong side of the road as he heads to Hobbiton behind a grin bigger than one face could safely hold:

Here’s a picture of me imagining I’m speeding around a corner only to find Zack heading the other way:

And then even if I manage to avoid Zack, there’s no avoiding the famous Auckland traffic. I still haven’t gotten over how bad it was last time I was up there:

(Don’t get me wrong…the traffic south of Auckland is not without its own challenges):

And then there’s the whole “Paying for Excel feels a little like the concept of paying for sex…I’m good enough at it these days that I really shouldn’t have to” thing. (Excel, that is.)

But then I read the program. And there is truly something for everyone. Even me, who’s a virtual demigod at it compared to the poor suckers around me who don’t use it at all and have no desire to start now. Not to mention the outstanding cast. These guys and gals are like the Dirty Dozen:

Or at least, they would be, if there were one more of them. Oh wait, look: there’s two more of them below. Okay, so they’re like the Dirty Baker’s Dozen, then.
Those two extras are a couple of guys called Yigel Edery and Ben Rampson from the Excel Project Team. These guys think they’re here to discuss the future of Excel. But I still live in the past – along with 99% of the rest of us – so I’ll make sure they find some time to answer all my tricky questions, like “How ’bout refreshing the Conditional Formatting Dialog. Have you ever had to actually use it yourselves? Huh? Huh?” …and… Where the hell are my Dynamic PivotTable References already? We’ve got ’em for Tables, but not for PivotTables. Have you ever tried to integrate PivotTables into a formula-driven spreadsheet? Huh? Huh? …and… Why does every ‘new’ Excel feature have the prefix ‘Formally Known As’? Have you ever tried to write a book about characters that kept changing their names half-way through? Huh? Huh?

Boy do I feel sorry for those guys: They’ll be dead keen to talk about the new extensions, while I’ll be dead keen to point out that the stairs that lead to them still are a little unsafe to use.  Let’s hope they’re still smiling like that when they get back on the plane.


I’ll also get to meet this guy, Ken Puls, …who wrote the most useful Excel blogpost ever in the history of most useful blogposts ever on the strength of it’s excellent existential first line alone: Do you know why you are here? He’s moving on to something more future focused in his presentation: Do you know where you are going? (A little place called PowerQuery apparently, located in the hip new suburb of Get and Transform.) Can’t wait, because I know zipcode about it.


And following straight on from that, I’ll either get to meet the Myth-Buster shown left, or the Chart-Buster shown right. (Apparently speakers are provisional and may change.) At least one of those guys needs no introduction: He’s Jon Peltier, and he’s a regular addition to my Google Search Terms whenever I try to squeeze out a good chart.  And I owe him an entire beer of gratitude thanks to the best macro I never paid for. He’s going to pick up where Ken left off: Using Ken’s Powerquery data to build a Dashboard.


I also finally get to meet Bill Jelen. I’m gonna ask him nicely to autograph my stack of Excel books…even the ones he didn’t write. (He didn’t write like 0.01% of them, so it won’t take him long).

The only problem is that Bill’s talk coincides with another from Ken on PowerQuery. Damn. But maybe I’ll just have to skip Ken’s sequel, because Bill’s gonna dive deep into Data Visualisations (yes, it’s spelt with an s down here), Conditional Formatting, and PivotTables.


And of course, Zack isn’t here merely to look down Hobbits’ holes. He’s also here to talk about Tables, and perhaps to drink me under one afterwards.


And I’m super-excited to be meeting Charles Williams, who’s like the Phar Lap of Fast Excel. The Edmund Hillary of Excel’s capillaries. The Ernest Rutherford of Excel under-the-hood. If you’ve got spreadsheets that take about as long to open as the running time of your average installment of The Hobbit, then you need to read this, and then you need to come meet this guy.


And that’s just a select few of the wizened, Excel-scarred faces that I’ll see there. There’s a whole bunch of other international stars and local heroes coming too (including from that sleepy continent-sized Island that lies to the West of New Zealand) that I just can’t wait to INDEX and MATCH.

So yes, I’ve got my ticket. And I suggest you get yours pronto, because – as we say down here – it’s going to be O for Owesome.

You going? Give me a shout out in the comments, and we’ll CONCATENATE. You thinking of going, but haven’t quite committed? Shout out below anyway, and perhaps one of the Dirty Baker’s Dozen will drop by and talk you around.

Hi all. long time ago I post here but i like to share this page with you all. After reading it you are happy that you only use Excel for windows <g> .

Problems with Apple’s sandbox requirements and Mac Office 2016 with VBA

http://www.rondebruin.nl/mac/mac034.htm

Have a nice day

Ooh, look how special I am.

As a reward I bought myself some new monitors.

The real story is that one of my 22″ monitors died last weekend. It would display normally for about a second before going black. The consensus on the internet was to throw it away and buy a new one. It’s been a while since I bought monitors and I was expecting that 30″ monitors would be in my price range by now. I was disappointed that I they’ve only fallen in price enough that I could get 24s. But I’m pretty happy with monitors that are identical. And the boy is pretty happy to get my hand-me-down, working 22″ monitor.

My next problem was that my video card was too old to drive these beasts. I solved that problem by allowing the boy to open an early Christmas present.

EVGA GeForce GTX 970

He gets a better 한국 토토사이트 gaming card and I get his old video card. Easy-peasy. Except that it took me four days to get the cards swapped out as am I not the hardware genius I sometimes make myself out to be.

Have a lovely holiday if your religion or culture celebrates one this week. I’m going to see Star Wars on Christmas Eve, so if you see me walking around Denver this week, don’t spoil it for me (but be sure to say ‘hi’).