Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with Excel

Escaping the grind

simplesharps — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:31:44 -0800

My friend works in database applications each day to create in house reports. He's bored and wants to go it alone. He's mainly interested in consulting local small to medium size businesses on data trends and training staff in time saving strategies. MS Excel is his preferred weapon of choice.

What are some business websites within this field, so he can best learn how to structure his new solo effort?

Closest thing I could come to was this, but it's not really hitting the mark.

Excel 2007: Filter one sheet based on a range of cells in another sheet

syzygy — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:59:38 -0800

Excel 2007: How do I filter one worksheet based on values in a range of cells in a second worksheet. Example: ParentSheet has 50 rows.
ChildSheet has 36000 rows.

I want to filter ChildSheet to show only rows that have Column A = any of the values in ParentSheet, Column A.

I'd do this with a join or an In() in SQL, like: SELECT ChildSheet.* FROM ChildSheet WHERE ChidSheet.A = ParentSheet.A;

Is there an easy way to do this in Excel 2007?

Timescale display in Excel

SirStan — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:01:30 -0800

Excel/Graphing - Time vs. usage (y/n) graph Oh great mefites. How do I create a graph that has on the X axis discrete items, such as "LIGHT A, LIGHT B, LIGHT C", and on the Y axis a timescale.

Basically I would like to be able to visually share usage patterns of various devices that are either being used, or not used.

The result would look something like this.

This would be relevant for many Y/N items, such as "what do the usage patterns of my 40 workstations at my business look like", or "what lights are on", or "what ports are on/off on my switch during the day".

I specifically want to be able to individually review items as show, I do not want an additive line graph/bar graph that one cannot make assumptions by looking horizontally.

Any tool is fair game.

CSV Help!

archimago — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:27:06 -0800

I need to save an Excel csv file of numbers with leading zeroes (e.g., 00987654). Everytime I save the file and reopen it, it drops the leading zeroes. I know how to get them to appear (custom create a number format of 00000000) but they are not saved this way in the csv file. Help! The file has to be a csv file because I am importing data into a database, and those numbers are unique IDs assigned by the database and cannot be changed to ones without the leading zeroes.

Is there an easy way to break pivot table rows or pages down into non-linked workbooks

willnot — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:16:51 -0800

I have an Excel pivot table for sales performance data. I want to break that down for regional managers so that they only have access to their own offices' data while preserving the nice formatting that the pivot table provides. Is there an easy way to do that? My pivot table structure is as follows:

Rows: Divisional Manager, Regional Manger, Office Name, Sales Person Name

Data (sums of): New Clients, Product 1, Product 2, Product 3

It's easy enough to check only one of the regional managers to show their data only and hide the raw data sheet, but any sophisticated manager could easily find other regions' data in that method, and pivot tables tend to be huge, so I don't want to e-mail them.

What I've been doing is check an individual regional manager only, copy, in a new workbook, paste special values (to break the association to the pivot table), paste special formats (to pretty it up), save as regional manager's name, go to 10. It works, but there are a ton of managers, and it seems like a huge waste of time -- the kind of thing computers were built to automate.

I'm sure there's some trixsy way to automate it using VB, but I don't know VB.

I found a way to explode the regional managers out into their own worksheets if they're in pages instead of rows, but that preserves the association with the pivot table, and they're all in the same workbook. There has to be an easier solution that I don't know about.

Getting Excel to count the number of repititions in a column?

Autarky — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:32:06 -0800

Excel Filter : I've got a list of a lot of names. All the names are in one column with a different name on each row. The names repeat a varying number of times. How can I get Excel to count how many times each name repeats and then put that number in a column next to the name? Basically, each row is an entry with a name and a few other various pieces of information. Some names have as many as 8 entries, and some only have 1 or 2. In a column next to each name I need Excel to put how many entries there are for that name (ie, how many times it repeats throughout the database). The COUNTA function does something like this, but I have to do it one name at a time, and I'm working with a spreadsheet that contains thousands of names. How can I get excel to do this automatically?

Excel Mileage Tracking

rossination — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:47:04 -0800

Help me set up an Excel spreadsheet to track my gas mileage on my car. I have about a year and a half of mileage gas mileage data for my car (whenever I filled up, I noted the amount of gas and the odometer reading). I would like to finally put it in Excel and take a look at it. My only concern is that there were a handful of times where I filled up my car and I forgot to fill out my sheet, so it may look something like this:

6/8/08 --- 54789 miles --- 8 gallons
??????
6/18/08 --- 55000 miles --- 3 gallons

I know that if I just plug that data into Excel, it will tell me that one week in June I had a Super Fillup of Extreme Efficiency Gas, and I know that's just not true. I remember from 8th grade math that if I were plotting this by hand, I would just estimate the missing point, and I imagine that there must be a way for Excel to do this for me, but I don't know how.

Any other resources or information on tracking gas mileage or using Excel for similar "life tracking" applications would be very welcome.

Excel formulas 201...

drpynchon — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:20:18 -0800

Intermediate level Excel formula question.... Say I have a column with an array of dates in order and a matching column with an array of values. I need a formula that outputs the date at which one of the values first falls below a certain number. For example. Let's say I have in rows 1-5 and columns A-B...

1/1/05 10
1/2/05 20
1/3/05 30
1/4/05 15
1/5/05 26
1/6/05 43
1/7/05 12

I'd like the date of the first value greater than 21 to be output (ie 1/3/05).

For bonus points, how do I output the date at which the value is greater than 21 for the second time (ie 1/5/05).

Turning an excel document into an application?

jbickers — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:17:39 -0800

Turning Excel data into an interactive, wizard-like app? We've got a rather large Excel spreadsheet that we'd like to be able to serve up as a wizard-like app. The document is a list of about 200 software products, each of which has 50 or so attributes. The products are the rows, attributes are the columns.

Most of the columns are yes/no, a few are text fields.

Is there any good/easy/inexpensive way to turn this into a very user friendly app? So, for instance, somebody could place check marks next to the attributes they need, and it returns a list of products that have checkmarks in those columns? The app could ignore the text fields and only reference the columns that are either on or off.

This would be delivered electronically, so it could either be a downloadable app or a password-protected web page. Would prefer that it be the former.

How do I get training to be an excel-lent employee?

J.R. Benedict — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:09:31 -0800

I'm a quick learner of computer programs... but am currently looking for a job and am realizing that I need excel training... (another of the things I really should've studied in college.) Any recommendations on where to get training in New York City? Because I'm looking for work currently, free is better than expensive... but inexpensive might be swingable. I'd like recommendations on places you've worked with or studied with before. I'm not at this point looking for a full blown certification.

I will take the NYPL class, but it's only two hours...

Bonus: I could get a book and work through stuff, but I think employers might look favorably on the initiative of taking a class. Plus I don't have access to excel to work on at home. I have google docs, open office, and Microsoft works spreadsheet, but not the full-blown excel.

Case-sensitive, but not sensitive enough

Chrysostom — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:20:21 -0800

Can Excel 2003 sort (or filter) primarily on case? I have some data in Excel of mixed case-some all caps, some all lower case. I want to segregate the lower case items, so I can delete them. As far as I can tell, I can only set the sort function to make case the second level criterion-first it makes the list alphabetical, then sorts by case.

In other words, Excel gives me:

AB
ab
AC

when I want:

AB
AC
ab

Is there any way to sort (or filter, as a second best option) in this manner?

"Sum of Total Cost" is redundant; I said "Total", didn't I?

skryche — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:42:03 -0800

Excel 2007: How do I get "Sum of" out of the data headers of my Pivottable? I used to consistently use the "Table 7" design in Excel 2003, which would strip "Sum of" out of the headings wonderfully. Now the design menu is gone, and if I change (say) "Sum of Total Cost" to "Total Cost" by hand, I get a "PivotTable field name already exists".

I could always rename it to "Total Cost " (note the trailing space), but such a kludge makes me cringe. I've tried changing the data source of past PivotTables to my new data, but that almost always makes Excel crash.

Has Excel simply lost this?

Tracking finances with Excel

jroybal — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:31:41 -0800

I think I'm going to start tracking my finances using Excel, or maybe Google Docs. This will supplement my credit union's online banking; I've considered Mint, Wesabe, iBank, Moneydance, among others, but haven't been impressed. Info includes date, transaction description, amount, balance, category (withdrawal, deposit, etc.), tags (gas, groceries, etc.) My question: what are your best tips, tricks, and hints for doing this? Excel formulas, creating charts, formatting technique, automation. Anything in that vein would be great. Thanks in advance!

Help, Please - I'm an Excel Moron

coollibrarian — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:49:32 -0800

I have to create an excel sheet to keep track of a book budget - in the most basic terms, I will have a total budget figure, and I want to subtract invoice figures to keep a running total. Here's an example of what I want the sheet to look like: http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n46/coollibrarian/excel.jpg The simpler the better. OK, I hate excel, math, formulas - I am a math moron, and what's worse - I simply don't care. I have TRIED to teach myself Excel several times, and I still can't manage even the simplest task. Since I have taught myself many complex things via books over my lifetime (I am a librarian, afterall), I can only assume it's because I have almost no natural math aptitude, and even less interest, if that's possible. SO, I am looking for the simplest answer to this question - how do I get the numbers in column D to subtract from 3,000 as people place orders?

If you can me the "why" in SIMPLE terms, feel free. I tried to Google this (naturally), but I didn't find what I was looking for - just a lot of Excel jargon that is as good as gibberish to me.

Thanks!

Gathering ebay infos.

SirStan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:48:29 -0800

cp /mnt/com/ebay/completed_auctions/ps3 ~/ps3.txt ?? I have the following pieces of information:

a. Search criteria
b. Date range.

And from this; I would like an Excel spreadsheet that has the following columns:

end price, end date, description, item #, seller, etc

Is there any way to do such a thing in an automated fashion without screen scraping myself?

Merge Excel worksheets?

ewiar — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:23:34 -0800

What's the easiest way to merge data from multiple Excel worksheets into one big worksheet I have a workbook with 223 worksheets. Each worksheet contains information about a given geographic area. The information for any given variable is in the same cell each time. I would like to convert this into one big worksheet.
---------------
Example of what I have:

Worksheet 1 [Area 1]:
Blue: 3
Black: 5
Green: 4

Worksheet 2 [Area 2]:
Blue: 5
Black: 2
Green: 5
------------------
Example of what I want

ONE BIG WORKSHEET
Area, Blue, Black, Green
1, 3, 5, 4
2, 5, 2, 5
--------------------------

If, for example, the value for 'Blue' will always be in cell B3, then, essentially I want a macro that works like this:

For i < 224
BIGSHEETBi=SHEETi!B!3

Graphing data from web over time

jestonb — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:57:04 -0800

I have created an excel spreadsheet that pulls data from the web, it works great. The only problem is that I can't tell if the data has changed over time. The website that I am pulling from doesn't track changes over time but it would be helpful for me. Is there a way to graph the data over time?

Exporting email subjects to Excel

SheIsMighty — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:07:27 -0800

How can I export a bunch of email subjects to Excel? I have a few hundred emails that all have the same type of subject: Last name, First name, ID code. I'd really like to export these subjects into an excel file so I can sort by name and compare them to another excel file that I have. Currently, I'm comparing the other excel file I have on paper with the list of emails I have on the screen. This will get old soon. Any ideas? (the email I'm using is Thunderbird)

Importing Excel spreadsheet data into to Word

lunchbox — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:05:22 -0800

How can I make readable Word tables out of a large Excel spreadsheet? Here's a question for the Excel/Word gurus.

I have created some data in Excel that I need to put into a Word document (.docx) in table form, preferably so that I can continue to edit the Excel spreadsheet and have the Word tables dynamically update. I tried using "Paste Special" to insert one of my worksheets as an Excel Object, but the spreadsheet is too wide to fit in my portrait-oriented Word document. What is the best way to make this data fit?

I have thought of changing some of the pages in my document to "landscape", so that all the table fields can fit. However, it seems I can only change the page orientation for the "rest of the document" to landscape, and I want to change only the middle of my document.

Also, inserting as an Excel Worksheet is quite unappealing aesthetically. The table looks grainy, and when I export to .mht, the object is converted to an image file, so that I cannot select the text.

Another, closely related question: in some situations, I want to make a bunch of tables out of one spreadsheet. In other words, let's say I have the following Excel spreadsheet:

Name | Age | Sex
----------------------
John | 12 | Male
Jane | 13 | Female

I want to convert this to two side-oriented tables of the following format:

Name | John
Age | 12
Sex | Male

Name | Jane
Age | 13
Sex | Female

Ideally, I would like to put these two tables in different places in my document, and have them automatically update when the spreadsheet changes. This seems very similar to the Mail Merge feature, except I want the output to be in my document, not to other formats.

Any ideas? Thanks!

My knowledge of Excel has not served me well...

InfinateJane — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:07:48 -0800

Within cell C2, If the content of a cell in $A$10:$A$900 is the same as the content in A2, I would like Excel to Average the contents of column H in the rows that match A2...does that even make sense? Because I have tried explaining this to Excel in as many ways as possible, and all it ever says back is "#value" or "0".

Any help would be REALLY appreciated!

Excel solver binary constraint help

mtstover — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:53:54 -0800

Why is Excel Solver not using the binary constraints I've set? I've created a table which calculates an answer based on a set of binary flags (0,1) --- basically a sumproduct type function. I'm trying to minimize the answer. But when I run solver (setting a binary constraint on those cells), it doesn't actually use binary numbers and instead is using a whole bunch of fractions.

The longest line in excel land

Umhlangan — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:37:57 -0800

I need help making sense of data from an adobe form that I want to export to excel. Adobe just laughs and excel simply shrugs. I have a simple adobe acrobat form that my field sales agents fill out every week giving the status of all their large contracts. The info is in a table and contains 9 items of info per contract (on one line). There are usually about 15 or twenty projects per form so 20 lines of information per form.
The problem comes when I receive the form and it gets imported to the dataset. I then would like to export to excel (as csv) and have my way with all this data but I can't - it gets exported to one incredibly long line. As I understand it , this is what adobe does and there isn't really a workaround.
So what are my options other than many tedious hours of cutting and pasting every week? Is there a way to manipulate the excel data or should I rather be using infopath and acess maybe? Please bear in mind I am very much an amateur with databases and such so please keep it to basics.
I'll watch this thread in case anyone wants any more information.

Decimal seconds, please.

dondiego87 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:03:50 -0800

Microsoft Excel VBA question: Converting decimal degrees to degrees-minutes-seconds (DMS), with rounding customization. I'm pretty proficient with Excel but am a complete n00b when it comes to programming even Visual Basic. I needed to convert some decimal degrees into DMS format, and failing to find a function that did so, I went to Google and found this page. Surprisingly enough, both of those modules worked successfully, allowing me to access them through the Function menu. I was even able to figure out how to change the function name to something I find clearer.

My one gripe about the Decimal-to-DMS conversion is that it doesn't allow for any numbers after the decimal point in the Seconds part of the output. I wouldn't usually mind (I know how tiny a second is), but I'm using this for a mapping application where meters matter, and the rounding is throwing me off. Can the hive mind help me get decimal seconds?

Excel Address Labels?

ThomThomThomThom — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:43:19 -0800

Excel filter:: Making mailing labels out of an excel spreadsheet? So I'm looking for a quick way to print a batch of labels from an Excel Spreadsheet... The addresses are broken into columns, so the name is in column A, the street address is in column B, and the city and zip is in column B... Thoughts? I've looked at Word's (2003) "envelopes and labels" stuff, but the only thing that it offers there is to import from Outlook's Address Book.... Any help would be appreciated!

Data visualisationfor presentations

tseo — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:56:30 -0800

I am looking for some good data visualisation books, tutorials and maybe software In my work I need to present my mates with lots of statistics mostly very simple but still I always need it to be as flashier and as simpler looking as possible. I am using Excel which kind of helps but not much since I am not always sure how I want to present the info and how to do it with Excel. I've seen there are some good data visualisation apps there but are mostly for dealing with complex databases and stuff.
What I am really looking for is something to guide me, help me make better visions for my simple statistics with presentation purposes.

I see some very good examples here - .