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[Witherweaver]

That is the fastest that my Excel sheet has refreshed all its formulas. I am suddenly suspicious.

Over the weekend an intern hardcoded all the cells to the numerical value they were last displaying.  Runs instantly!

[Kuildeous]

That is the fastest that my Excel sheet has refreshed all its formulas. I am suddenly suspicious.

Over the weekend an intern hardcoded all the cells to the numerical value they were last displaying.  Runs instantly!

*ragepunch monitor*

[pacovf]

That is the fastest that my Excel sheet has refreshed all its formulas. I am suddenly suspicious.

Over the weekend an intern hardcoded all the cells to the numerical value they were last displaying.  Runs instantly!

There are incompatibilities between (some versions of) Excel and Open Office that cause this problem. Probably the reason this happened?

[Kuildeous]

That is the fastest that my Excel sheet has refreshed all its formulas. I am suddenly suspicious.

Over the weekend an intern hardcoded all the cells to the numerical value they were last displaying.  Runs instantly!

There are incompatibilities between (some versions of) Excel and Open Office that cause this problem. Probably the reason this happened?

Nope, it's my own personal Excel sheet that no one else touches. And I verified that the results are correct. What used to take about 10-15 minutes to refresh only took less than a minute. Maybe there's been a performance update on the servers.

I love how in the '80s it was all mainframes. Then we got personal computers. Now we're using VDI, so it's back to the '80s we go.

[ashersky]

F.DS... your online resource for Excel strategy.

F.DS...your online resource to excel at strategy.

[2.71828.....]

That is the fastest that my Excel sheet has refreshed all its formulas. I am suddenly suspicious.

Over the weekend an intern hardcoded all the cells to the numerical value they were last displaying.  Runs instantly!

There are incompatibilities between (some versions of) Excel and Open Office that cause this problem. Probably the reason this happened?

Nope, it's my own personal Excel sheet that no one else touches. And I verified that the results are correct. What used to take about 10-15 minutes to refresh only took less than a minute. Maybe there's been a performance update on the servers.

I love how in the '80s it was all mainframes. Then we got personal computers. Now we're using VDI, so it's back to the '80s we go.

Yeah, I mean, what are you going to do now instead of taking the built in 9-11 minute break?  More work?  Say it isn't so.

[Kuildeous]

Yeah, I mean, what are you going to do now instead of taking the built in 9-11 minute break?  More work?  Say it isn't so.

Always relevant:




Also, it's official. I hate thumb.db files. If I can't delete a folder, I have to go hunting for these damned gremlins.

[2.71828.....]

Speaking of excel help.  Any way to do logic formulas using fill color?  I looked online (not very long and not very hard...mostly because I knew I could ask here) and couldn't find anything that would work except a manual trick to create a new column and enter text into it for all of the cells that have a certain fill then use the logic formula with that data.

I mean, it works that way for me, but it just means I have to do one extra step of filtering by fill then inserting the text into the new column.

[ashersky]

Actually, I have an excel question, too.

Every week, I get a spreadsheet with a certain set of data (like, 100 rows or so).  They have multiple columns, and the first one has names in it.  I receive the spreadsheet in the order each line item was entered, which is chronological.

I have to provide the data elsewhere, but listed in alphabetical order by name instead.  For now, I print it out and just re-type it into a new sheet, going down the list of 100 to make sure I get all the "A" names, then all the "B" names, etc.  It's a bit time-consuming though.

Is there a way I could rearrange it all somehow without having to re-type it?

[2.71828.....]

Actually, I have an excel question, too.

Every week, I get a spreadsheet with a certain set of data (like, 100 rows or so).  They have multiple columns, and the first one has names in it.  I receive the spreadsheet in the order each line item was entered, which is chronological.

I have to provide the data elsewhere, but listed in alphabetical order by name instead.  For now, I print it out and just re-type it into a new sheet, going down the list of 100 to make sure I get all the "A" names, then all the "B" names, etc.  It's a bit time-consuming though.

Is there a way I could rearrange it all somehow without having to re-type it?

Does the spreadsheet have a title row?  Like "Name" "phone number" "birthday" or whatever?  If not, I recommend creating one.  From there, highlight all the titles and apply a filter and then you can sort by whatever column you want.  In this case by name.

[Kuildeous]

I'm not immediately familiar with formulas based on cell color. I admit that I don't do that much with color except for prettifying it at the end or using conditional formatting to help me identify problem children.

As for arranging the data in alphabetical order, e is correct. You don't need to retype the data in alphabetical order. In fact, if the information is in Excel, there is a really good chance that you won't need to retype it for any of your needs; you just need to find the right formula/method to arrange it the way you want.

[Polk5440]

Actually, I have an excel question, too.

Every week, I get a spreadsheet with a certain set of data (like, 100 rows or so).  They have multiple columns, and the first one has names in it.  I receive the spreadsheet in the order each line item was entered, which is chronological.

I have to provide the data elsewhere, but listed in alphabetical order by name instead.  For now, I print it out and just re-type it into a new sheet, going down the list of 100 to make sure I get all the "A" names, then all the "B" names, etc.  It's a bit time-consuming though.

Is there a way I could rearrange it all somehow without having to re-type it?

Sort the spreadsheet. (Data-> Sort). Highlight the data (rows) you want sorted (can have a title row or not), select the column by which you want to sort the rows (e.g. last name). Make sure all the data is highlighted; Excel will only sort the highlighted data!

If you have something like "FirstName LastName" in one cell and want to sort by last name, first you have to split the column. Data->Text to Columns. Delimiter is space. (Make sure you insert empty columns for the data to go into first.) Then sort by your new last name column.

Filter lets you see a subset of the data, but does not rearrange it.

[ashersky]

I'm really sad everyone assumed I was serious.

[pacovf]

Better give basic advice to someone that jokingly feigns ignorance than to laugh at a beginner's serious question!

I call it "the homeless drummer rule".

[Witherweaver]

Actually, I have an excel question, too.

Every week, I get a spreadsheet with a certain set of data (like, 100 rows or so).  They have multiple columns, and the first one has names in it.  I receive the spreadsheet in the order each line item was entered, which is chronological.

I have to provide the data elsewhere, but listed in alphabetical order by name instead.  For now, I print it out and just re-type it into a new sheet, going down the list of 100 to make sure I get all the "A" names, then all the "B" names, etc.  It's a bit time-consuming though.

Is there a way I could rearrange it all somehow without having to re-type it?

What you should do is write each one on separate a piece of paper.  Then you can physically move the pieces of paper around to sort them.  You can even do some fancy sorting algorithms (bubble sort, merge sort) to make the approach efficient.  Then, once they're sorted, simply type into Excel in the resulting order!

[ashersky]

Better give basic advice to someone that jokingly feigns ignorance than to laugh at a beginner's serious question!

I call it "the homeless drummer rule".

That's fair.  Although, if it had been a Dominion (or comma) question, there would have been no shortage of snark or derision.

[Kuildeous]

Better give basic advice to someone that jokingly feigns ignorance than to laugh at a beginner's serious question!

I call it "the homeless drummer rule".

I had my suspicion about the seriousness of the question, especially since I remember someone (Theory?) posting about a colleague who arranges data in such a fashion.

But yeah, I didn't want to discourage someone with a, "You're joking, right?" Because what if that person isn't?

I did work with a doctor who struggled with copy and paste. He needed me to walk him through it. Granted, this was in the late '90s, and he was an older gentleman, so knowledge of copy and paste was not so ubiquitous. Still, guy was smart enough to get through medical school at some point, and he kept forgetting how to copy and paste.

[Davio]

This week I annotated a class with JAXB (Java XML), JPA (Java database stuff) and Gson (JSON by Google) annotations. It felt like I had unlocked an achievement.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

Better give basic advice to someone that jokingly feigns ignorance than to laugh at a beginner's serious question!

I call it "the homeless drummer rule".

I had my suspicion about the seriousness of the question, especially since I remember someone (Theory?) posting about a colleague who arranges data in such a fashion.

But yeah, I didn't want to discourage someone with a, "You're joking, right?" Because what if that person isn't?

I did work with a doctor who struggled with copy and paste. He needed me to walk him through it. Granted, this was in the late '90s, and he was an older gentleman, so knowledge of copy and paste was not so ubiquitous. Still, guy was smart enough to get through medical school at some point, and he kept forgetting how to copy and paste.

My wife gives me a hard time about how I cut and paste.  I never learned the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V (or whatever it is).  I highlight text, and hit Ctrl+Insert to copy.  To paste, it's Shift+Insert.  To cut then paste, it's Ctrl+Delete, then Shift+Insert.  It's just what I picked up in early versions of Word, and I've not had the need to change.  And I wonder if I'm smart enough to change if I needed to.

[Kuildeous]

Small joys: Abandoning my awesome parking spot to go out for lunch only to find the spot still open upon my return.

Good thing too, because I decided against bringing a jacket to lunch, and it was not as warm as I thought.

[Witherweaver]

Small joys: Abandoning my awesome parking spot to go out for lunch only to find the spot still open upon my return.

Good thing too, because I decided against bringing a jacket to lunch, and it was not as warm as I thought.

Go home for the day.  Quit while you're ahead.

[Kuildeous]

Small joys: Abandoning my awesome parking spot to go out for lunch only to find the spot still open upon my return.

Good thing too, because I decided against bringing a jacket to lunch, and it was not as warm as I thought.

Go home for the day.  Quit while you're ahead.

Damn, I came back. Now my day is toast.

[theory]

We needed to fill out some paperwork for our client today.  We planned to do it as a group.  So I sent a coordinating email that ended with:

"Should we get a room or just do it in your office?"

During spellcheck I was like ... wait ... I should rephrase that

"Also, should we get a room or just fill out the forms in your office?"

[Witherweaver]

We needed to fill out some paperwork for our client today.  We planned to do it as a group.  So I sent a coordinating email that ended with:

"Should we get a room or just do it in your office?"

During spellcheck I was like ... wait ... I should rephrase that

"Also, should we get a room or just fill out the forms in your office?"

Something, something, debrief, something, something.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

We needed to fill out some paperwork for our client today.  We planned to do it as a group.  So I sent a coordinating email that ended with:

"Should we get a room or just do it in your office?"

During spellcheck I was like ... wait ... I should rephrase that

"Also, should we get a room or just fill out the forms in your office?"

Something, something, debrief, something, something.

Exactly.  A little sump'n sump'n.

Nice catch theory.