Excel......

Hmmm. Really exciting topic I know but one for the 'users' out there.

I friggen love Excel. It is a seriously great application in my job at least.

I marvel at the power of it and the fact that when you think "Hmmmm, I wonder if you can do this"....generally you can.

A few simple formulas (such as VLOOKUP, CONCATENATE ETC) and pivot tables, and away you go.

So, for once at least, I say Well done MS on this one.

And 2007 is much better that 2003....despite initial relectance on my behalf.

The ongoing thought that goes into this app is awesome!

Heh, I hear ya, not about excel personally which I can't really use to any great extent, but a few programs that I do use really are a pleasure generally, and I find myself thinking "now this is how it's supposed to be done".

It's nice when things just work.

Why don't you just marry it then?

No but I understand to some degree as I have saved myself and the business massive amounts of time with excel tricks and I'm really just novice.

Too many people are far too content to keep doing things the old way instead of asking is there a better, faster way to do this? because there often is...

Did this really need to go in to tech forum?

The Lounge is for fun threads only!

I once encountered a lady at a place i worked who was using excel as a note book and using a desktop calculator to do the bank staements and credit card expenses.

I showed her that she could work out the gst and before gst amounts, rep totals and whole totals in about 30 seconds rather than spending 2 hours working it out by hand.

She chased me round the office trying to kiss me.

I set up a production and planning system including stock and job reports for a manufacturing company in excel, then helped develop it into access and finally into a full process map and erp system. The basic excel work managed to capture 70% of the system but required one person to do it all and there were no 'transactions' you could undo.

What was the similar lotus program before excel?

Lotus 1-2-3 I think

yeah 1-2-3.

And the first spreadsheet that started it all was Visicalc on the *ahem* Apple II.

spreadsheets definitely were the killer app before networking. i reduced a 40 hr a week job to 1 day a week job using Lotus and then goofed off the rest of the time and still got a promotion.

HI KRIS_B!!!

That's like you're saying thank you to Microsoft for Mathematics

One feature I really wiush they would add is the ability to paste absolute references or relative. By which I mean being able to check a box meaning you don't have to manually delete or add $ to all your references when you paste them, or use find an replace. The other is when the ability to remove links to other workbooks when pasting them rather than having to find and replace or editing the link after you've pasted it. But yeah, if they added those to features to the paste special function it'd be perfect.

paste special -> paste link = absolute
paste = relative

not quite the answer - refer above

but when typing in cell references use the F4 key to cycle through the various options - ie a1 $a1 a41 $a$1

used to teach corporate wankers how to use excel... was really quite fun (he says whilst looking at his shoes and feeling like a dick)