Excel Roundup 20140421

Last week, Microsoft’s Excel team announced several welcome improvements to Excel online. The new feature that I like best is that you can now edit files that contain VBA, without the code being removed or corrupted. Of course, it would be even better to use VBA online, but we’re making progress!

Other new features include:

• Hiding and unhiding rows and columns with a right-click
• Easier access to Excel Online – just go to https://office.com and click the type of document you want to create
• Add, remove and edit comments
• Navigate quickly with the Go To shortcut (Ctrl + G)

You can read the details on the team’s blog: What’s New in Excel Online

Contextures Posts

Here’s what I posted last week:

• Chandoo and I discussed Excel form control tips and traps in his latest podcast. Listen in, to get info on a discount and bonus.
• Use conditional formatting and custom number formats to show text in a pivot table values area, instead of numbers.
• Pie charts should usually be avoided, but can we make an exception for pizza pie charts?
• Finally, for a humorous peek at what other people are saying about Excel, read this week’s collection of Excel tweets, on my Excel Theatre blog.

Other Excel Articles

Here are a few of the Excel articles that I read last week, that you might find useful:

• Jan Karel Pieterse shares his code that will help you troubleshoot VBA performance issues.

• Author Emily Saso rarely uses Excel for calculations, but it’s helped her create a roadmap for her novel.

• What led to you become a programmer? Andrew Wulf looks back at his education, and appreciates the teachers who reinforced creativity and improvisation.

• Download Max Fraudy’s sample file, to see how compare a chart series against an average or benchmark. This simple technique uses formatting, not programming.

• If the Easter bunny didn’t bring you anything, you can find hidden eggs in Chandoo’s Excel tips file.

• Marco Russo ran into problems when opening workbooks in Excel for iPad, and found a couple of workarounds.

Excel Resources

Here are some upcoming events, courses and new books, related to Excel.

• Registration is open for the Amsterdam Excel Summit. The one-day event runs on May 14, 2014, and features sessions by several Excel MVPs, such as Bill Jelen (Mr. Excel), Ken Puls and Charles Williams. All the sessions are in English, and the limit is 100 participants, so sign up now, if you’re interested.

• The European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group – EuSpRIG –has announced the preliminary program for Eursprig 2014. This event will be held in Delft (Netherlands) on July 3, 2104. Read more about it on Patrick O’Beirne’s blog.

Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants, by Neale Blackwood
448 pages, published April 14, 2014
Learn about the functions that work together to automate many of the processes involved in Management Reporting. See how to take advantage of the many new features of Excel 2007 and 2010. Find out how to build validation structures into your spreadsheet reports.

What Did You Read or Write?

If you read or wrote any other interesting Excel articles recently, that you’d like to share, please add a comment below, or send me an email. Please include a brief description, and a link to the article.

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