Contextures Blog

Excel is always my first choice in spreadsheets! Recently though , I’ve been using Google Spreadsheets, to help plan a family event.

I created a file and shared it with a few people, and it’s a quick and easy way for us to keep track of who’s doing what.

We Need a Backup

Then it dawned on me that we’re storing all this information online, with no backup. What happens if we can’t get to that file, a few days before the event? Too horrible to even think about!

So, I copied everything from the Google Spreadsheet, and pasted it into Excel. Not too efficient, but at least I had an offline copy.

Export a Copy to Excel

After I had created the emergency backup file, I looked around to see what other options there are for making the backups.

The first thing I found was that I could export to Excel, when I had a Google Spreadsheet open.

Click the File menu, then click Export, and click the .xls option.

In the dialog box that appears, to can click the Save option, then name the file and select a folder to store it in.

Save One Selected File as Excel

When you’re looking at the list of your Google Documents, you can add a check mark to select one Google Spreadsheet.

Then, click More actions, and click Save as Excel. (If more than one file is selected, the list won’t show the Save options.)

Download Selected Files

If you have lots of Google Documents, you might want to download and save more thane one file at a time.

To do this in Firefox, I installed GreaseMonkey, Google Docs Download script, and the DownThemAll add-on. That took a couple of minutes, and went very smoothly.

The script add a new menu, Download Your Documents, to the Google Documents menu bar.

Select all the files that you want to download, then click Download Your Documents, and click as Microsoft Office files.

A new web page appears, with a list of your selected files.

In the Firefox menu bar, click Tools, then click DownThemAll! Tools, and click DownThemAll!…

In the DownThemAll dialog box, click All files, or select specific files to download.

Click Start! to start the download.

What’s Your Backup Plan?

Do you use Google Documents? If so, how do you create backup files? Maybe you’ve found an easier way to accomplish this.
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When you’re inserting a shape in Excel 2007 (or using a drawing tool in earlier versions), sometimes you want to use the shape a few times, not just once.

For example, if you’re creating a simple flow chart or organization chart, there might be several rectangles and connector lines.

Make Quick Shapes

Yes, I know there are better tools for this kind of thing, but sometimes it’s easier and quicker to do it in Excel or Word.

Instead of going back to the Ribbon, to create each shape, you can select the shape once, and use it several times.

Reuse Shape in Excel 2007

1. Click on the Ribbon’s Insert tab, and click Shapes.
2. In the list of shapes, right-click on the shape that you want to use
3. Click Lock Drawing Mode

Now you can click on the worksheet to add that shape in its default size, or drag on the worksheet to create a shape in a specific size.

Tip: Press the Shift key while you drag, to constrain the shape.

Reuse a Shape in Excel 2003

1. On the Drawing toolbar, double-click the shape that you want to use

If the shape is not in the Drawing toolbar:

• On the Drawing toolbar, click AutoShapes
• Click a category, to view its shapes
• Point to the bar at the top of the shapes list
• When the pointer is a 4-headed arrow, drag the shapes palette onto the worksheet.

• In the shapes palette, double-click the shape that you want to use

Turn Off the Locked Shape

When you’re finished using the shape:

• press the Esc key on the keyboard, OR
• click that shape on the Ribbon’s Format tab (or toolbar in earlier versions), to deselect it.

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Several times every day, I drag something from one part of a worksheet to another. If there’s already something in that destination cell, Excel shows a message that asks me if I’m sure I want to do this.

Continue reading “Turn Off Excel Overwriting Cell Warning”

Do you use many colours in Excel?

I keep most of my Excel workbooks relatively colour free, except for a few headings or charts, or to mark cells for data entry. Usually, I use Excel’s standard colours, but sometimes I need something a little different.

For example, if I’m building a workbook for a client, I might want to match their corporate colours.

Modify a Colour in Excel 2003

The colour options are hard to find in Excel 2003. To use a new custom colour to your workbook, you’ll have to modify one of the existing colours.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Color tab, click on one of the standard colours that you don’t plan to use in this workbook
3. Click Modify, to open the Colors dialog box

Select a Colour in Excel 2007

In Excel 2007, you can use a Ribbon command to open the Color dialog box.

1. On the Ribbon’s Home tab, click the arrow at the right of the Fill Color or Font Color button
2. Click More Colors…

The Color Dialog Box

In both versions of Excel, the Colors dialog box looks the same.

Click on a colour in the Standard tab, or click the Custom tab for more choices.

Make It Bigger

To make it easier to see the colours, double-click the Colors title bar, and the dialog box will expand to fill the screen.

That lets you really zoom in on the colour choices, at the pixel level, and find what you need.

Select a Custom Colour

If my client provided colour information, I can enter the Red, Green and Blue numbers on the Custom tab, for an exact match.

When I don’t need an exact match, I can move through the custom colour screen until I find something that looks appropriate for the workbook.

To move through the Custom Colors palette:

• Click on a colour with the mouse pointer
• Or, on the keyboard, use the arrow keys to move up, down, left or right

At the bottom left of the Colors window, the Red, Green and Blue numbers will change, as you move through the colours.

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