By default, Excel has a limited number of charts. That does not mean that those are the only charts one can create. It turns out that with a little imagination and creativity, we can format and configure the default charts so that the effect is like many other kinds of charts. One of the more [...]
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Analyze ‘free’ money
Recently, I received yet another promotion from yet another company offering me money at zero percent interest with the predictable asterisk next to the zero percent. Instead of just shredding the offer I decided to create a downloadable Excel template to analyze the offer, which was an interest-free 18 month loan for a 4% transaction [...]
Excel corrupts certain workbooks in migrating from 2003 to 2007
I got a email from a client asking for help because Excel was “destroying,” to use his terminology, his 2003 workbook after conversion to the 2007 format. And, after analyzing the kind of change Excel made, I had to agree. The following in 2003 Figure 1 becomes, in 2013 (and in 2010), Figure 2 The [...]
RIP Live Mesh, hello Cubby
Recently, I have had to make changes to my “computing infrastructure.” This is one of them. For the longest time I synchronized files between my laptop and desktop with the help of a flash drive. Then, I discovered Groove but it didn’t really fit the bill and I don’t remember why. It was on [...]
Worksheet as a chart – multiple conditional formats
Several years back, I wrote an article on how to use multiple cells to simulate conditional formats that involved more than 3 conditions. Three versions of Excel later, I still receive requests related to this post. So, I updated it to include more screenshots and a downloadable file. In Excel 2003 and earlier, conditional formatting [...]
TM Goal Seek
TM Goal Seek enhances the existing user interface to Excel’s Goal Seek feature. The built in Goal Seek is a simple optimization tool that suffices for a large number of scenarios. The UI, unfortunately, is extremely unwieldy and unfriendly. TM Goal Seek is a simple add-in that is easier to use than the default dialog [...]
The Excel FORMULATEXT function
With Excel 2013, Microsoft introduced several new functions, one of which is worth a separate mention. FORMULATEXT displays as text the formula in a cell. For a version in a page by itself (i.e., not in a scrollable iframe as below) visit http://www.tushar-mehta.com/publish_train/xl_vba_cases/0116%20formulatext%20function.shtml Tushar Mehta
The Range.Find method and a FindAll function
Two things that could be better about the Range.Find method have been 1) up-to-date and correct documentation, and 2) adding the UI’s ‘Find All’ capability to the Excel Object Model. As of Office 2013 neither has happened. Consequently, every time I want to use the Find method, I continue to have to jump through hoops [...]
Do consumers prefer the ease of an EXE installer or the transparency of a ZIP file?
For all the various add-ins available from my website, I have supported two downloadable formats, an EXE and a ZIP file. The EXE is easier to install and includes an uninstall capability. The ZIP hopefully provides the consumer greater transparency and control over what is on their computer. In addition to the software downloadable from [...]
The 2012 Financial Modeling World Championships
http://www.modeloff.com/ I “pre registered” even though there’s not a lot of information on the site. For example, I could not find any information about the organizers, nor could I find any motivational details other than “The prize pool…will include cash, interviews with leading global Financial Institutions, product giveaways and more.” Neither is there any information [...]