Plan Your Holiday Dinner in Excel

Mock me if you will, but I use Excel to plan the timing for our holiday dinners. Monday was our Canadian Thanksgiving, so it was the perfect occasion to dig the planner out again.

You know that it’s a delicate juggling act, trying to get everything cooked and on the table at the same time. Then, halfway through dinner you realize that the dinner rolls are still in the oven. Oops!

To prevent the senseless loss of dinner rolls, and help things go smoothly, I use my Excel Holiday Dinner Planner.

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Yes, it takes a few minutes to set up, by entering all the dinner items, and the preparation steps, but it’s time well invested!

If you’re like me, and don’t vary the holiday menu too much, you can reuse the worksheet, for every holiday.

Calculate the Start Time

Once the sheet is set up, you simply select the time that you want to serve dinner, and the Excel dinner planner calculates the preparation start time.

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Follow the List

With the planner, you’ll have a complete list of dinner items, with preparation start and end times. Follow the list, and you won’t be likely to forget those dinner rolls in the oven.

You can find more instructions, and download links, on the Excel Holiday Dinner Planner page on the Contextures website.
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Spreadsheet Day 2011 Challenge

spreadsheet dayIt’s hard to believe that a year has passed already, and it’s only a week until Spreadsheet Day — Monday, October 17th.

Don’t panic though, there’s still time to organize an office party, and order a spreadsheet cake.

If you have thousands of dollars in your celebration budget, you could buy a special bottle of Scotch, that is the “Excel” of the whisky world. That’s out of my league though – I’ll have a glass of Canadian wine instead.

And please keep reading, to see how you can contribute to the celebrations.

Before the Spreadsheet

Back in the old days, when I went to university, there were no laptops, or spreadsheet programs. Sad, I know. Fortunately, paper had been invented by then, so I was able to take notes, without a rock and chisel.

There was even a computer assignment in my Statistics class. No tapping on an iPad though – we ventured into the dark and dusty dungeons below the Science building, where we submitted punch cards, to run a program. Good times!

The Spreadsheet Day Challenge

Even now, with fancy gadgets and Google searches, it’s tough to manage things as a student. By mid-October, the new school year enthusiasm has worn off, and brutal reality has set in.

Students are running out of money, are tired of eating macaroni and cheese, and can’t find any clean socks. A spreadsheet can’t solve all their problems, but might help them keep organized, and stay on a budget.

Many students have Microsoft Excel, or Google Documents, or another spreadsheet, so let’s help them make good use of those tools.

To celebrate Spreadsheet Day 2011, could you create a free template or add-in, to help a student? What spreadsheet tools could a struggling student use?

  • Monthly student budget tracker
  • Course assignment checklist
  • Mark needed to pass this course calculator
  • Low cost meal planner
  • ???

If you don’t have time to make a template, you can drop by this blog next Monday, and leave a spreadsheet tip in the comments.

  • Share one of your favourite formulas
  • Post a time-saving shortcut
  • ???

Post Your Contributions

Next Monday, October 17th, post your Spreadsheet Day contribution on your blog, or Facebook, or Twitter (use hashtag #spreadsheetday), or create a public Google spreadsheet.

If you send me a link to your free and useful Spreadsheet Day tool, I’ll post it on the Spreadsheet Day Blog, to help students find your work.
Thanks! Looking forward to seeing your contributions. Will you join in?
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Create Random Scenarios in Excel

My son is in an Air Traffic Control course, and there’s lots of information to memorize. Directions have to be given in a very specific sequence, or the pilots don’t respond. Apparently, you can’t say, “Hey dude, just put it down anywhere.” No, you have to address the aircraft correctly, and specify an apron and refer to a valid destination. Or something like that!
Continue reading “Create Random Scenarios in Excel”

Excel Pivot Table Sorting Problems

Usually, it’s easy to sort an Excel pivot table – just click the drop down arrow in a pivot table heading, and select one of the sort options. Occasionally though, you might run into pivot table sorting problems, where some items aren’t in A-Z order.

drop down arrow in a pivot table heading
drop down arrow in a pivot table heading

Continue reading “Excel Pivot Table Sorting Problems”

Excel 2010 Print Preview Problems

Last week, you saw my macro for adding worksheet data to the Excel footer, and formatting a date in the Excel footer. In that example, you had to run the macro by going to the View tab, and clicking the Macro command.

To make the process easier, I decided to add event code to the workbook, so the macro would run automatically.

Continue reading “Excel 2010 Print Preview Problems”

Excel Footer with Formatted Date

It’s Fancy Footer Friday! Check with your boss – maybe you can leave early to celebrate.

This week, I’ve been working on Excel printed reports, and one of my clients wanted some fancy features in the footer. There are built-in footer options in Excel, but my client wanted to pull information from the worksheet, and format the date, so we needed some footer programming.
Continue reading “Excel Footer with Formatted Date”

Show Excel Comments in Centre of Window

When you add comments to an Excel worksheet, they pop up to the top right of the cell, when you point to a cell with comments.

That’s fine most of the time, but if the cell is near the top or right of the window, you might not be able to read the comment.

commentcentre01

Move Comments with Macro

Unfortunately, you can’t control the comment’s popup position, but with a bit of programming, you can show the comment in the centre of the screen, when you click on the cell.

commentcentre02

Centre Excel Comments Code

Paste the following code onto a worksheet module. Then, when you click on a cell that contains a comment, that comment is shown in the centre of the active window’s visible range.

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
 'www.contextures.com/xlcomments03.html
 Dim rng As Range
 Dim cTop As Long
 Dim cWidth As Long
 Dim cmt As Comment
 Dim sh As Shape
Application.DisplayCommentIndicator _
      = xlCommentIndicatorOnly
Set rng = ActiveWindow.VisibleRange
cTop = rng.Top + rng.Height / 2
cWidth = rng.Left + rng.Width / 2
If ActiveCell.Comment Is Nothing Then
  'do nothing
Else
   Set cmt = ActiveCell.Comment
   Set sh = cmt.Shape
   sh.Top = cTop - sh.Height / 2
   sh.Left = cWidth - sh.Width / 2
   cmt.Visible = True
End If
End Sub

More Excel Comment Macros

For more Excel comment macros, please visit the Excel Comment VBA page on the Contextures website.
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