July 2009 - Posts
I received an email from a nice fellow, from a very large Minneapolis-based organization, yesterday, asking how a coworker could learn to use Excel.
This is a pretty good question, for mature individuals in the workforce, or potential hobbyists who might think they'll have a need for the software, at some point.
Here's my advice, based on my experience.
I would not start on your own - the realm of possibilities are too vast and while it's easy enough to say "read the manual", you won't know what you're looking for.
A primer is in order. I would scour local Community Colleges for primer courses, e.g., if you were in the Twin Cities, Normandale Community College offers a beginner Excel course, on the weekends, for $99:
http://normandale.augusoft.net/index.cfm?method=ClassInfo.ClassInformation&int_class_id=6235&int_category_id=5&int_sub_category_id=26&int_catalog_id=0#
The point in doing this is two-fold:
- Friendly price-point
- Establish a base understanding of Excel with hands-on assistance
I don't necessarily recommend that particular course or institution, as I haven't attended either, but it's an example of the concept. And they offer more advanced courses, too.
Once you have a good working base knowledge of Excel, and remember, we're learning to crawl before we walk, and walk before run, then I recommend to self-study.
Microsoft Excel MVP, Tom Urtis, has a write-up on this very subject, layering on additional Excel insight, in the following link:
http://www.atlaspm.com/faqxllearnmore.html#104
And I agree with this, as this is how I approach learning how to use Excel.
A few additional comments. You're not Neo, and this isn't 'The Matrix', you can't download an understanding of Excel directly into your brain. If you want to learn how to effectively use Excel, you've got to want it, and study it quite a bit, to the point where you feel your working knowledge is adequate.
I really believe that self-study and experimentation on Spreadsheets, that are mission-critical to you, are imperative for learning how to use Excel, versus contrived academic work. Have you ever been in a car that you're driving to a location you've never been, and you can recall how to get there, next time? But, while being a passenger, none of the voyage is retained?
In my experience, Excel is very much like this. It's easier to learn and retain if you're piloting, and what you're practicing is important to you.
With that, good hunting!
Okay, let's take Excel 2008 off the table, it ships VBA-less; this is a deal-breaker for me. Note, this is simply my thoughts based on my brief experience, i.e., if you enjoy using Excel on your Mac, more power to you. And this is my take on an out-of-the-box interface, itself, not attempting to set up Jet Connections, etc...
I conducted a poll at MrExcel.com, to see if people with PC vs. Mac Excel experience preferred one to the other. The turn-out was underwhelming, but the majority does appear to favor the PC, and can be found, here:
http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=353557
I had never worked with Excel on a Mac, until recently. I do pro bono consulting for the Women's Professional Billiards Association (WPBA), and my contact, on their Board of Directors, uses a Mac. Right, so I was off to North Carolina to provide training and some non-trivial project-work, on a Mac.
Nice enough looking machine; however, there were a couple of things that were driving me batty while trying to simply work with Excel on a Mac.
No right-click. I knew before I even jumped on this thing that it's not available, but that didn't stop me, it's engrained in my brain. Perhaps I didn't realize just how much I right-click? Quick sort? Quickly set some Column Widths? Paste Special? Forget about it, you're going to the menu. I can't recall why I was attempting to right-click so much, but I must have done it 10 times in an hour. This being the working definition of insanity - attempting the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
There's probably a simple fix for this, a key combination perhaps, but we didn't know it: the F-keys don't work? I like my F-keys too, apparently. I know I tried to use F2 and F9 while auditing some Worksheet Functions, and nothing. The one F-key combination that did work was Alt-F11, more on this in a moment.
I found myself missing normal keyboard keys. There is no Delete key, there is, but it functions like a Backspace. The Mac's keyboard is missing other keys, too, like End? Someone help me out here (I only did this for 2 hours). It's missing a key that I use a lot for scrolling, must be End...
And for my favorite drain-bamager... Like I said, Alt-F11 works, nice. So I get back into the Project, add a Module, I am ready to rip. When I write a lot of code that interacts with complex Worksheet data I tend to jump back and forth between the front and back end of Excel quite a bit; here's where the fun really begins.
So I flip back to the Worksheet, look my data, flip back to the Project. The Project's still open, but the Module's gone. Where did that thing go? At this point, I feel like I'm watching Eddie Murphy's 'Delirious', where Eddie's old man calls the family dog, Cocoa, and that dog is outta there. Where the [bleep] is that dog going?! "The dog is stupid, Eddie!"
I'm messing around in the Project Explorer, I can't get this thing to maximize? Fine, I kill the VBE, and step into the procedure from the front-end. Again, more working definition of insanity, I repeat said view flip; it's gone again. My contact says, "I bet I know where it is." She cursors over to the left side of the screen, in the VBE, and this magical, vertical task bar appears from out of nowhere. If you cursor down to the very lower-left of the screen, at this point, there's your Module. I would have never found that thing!
Performance was fine, other than an issue with Variant Arrays, but the interface almost drove me insane - or, maybe it did. Not quite like a fish being out of water, but it was just different enough where every few minutes or so I found myself wondering "Wait a second, here. What?"
Granted, I'm very new to that interface, so I was probably guilty of some Mac-Newb gaffers.
Macs are the rage, right? Stable, intuitive, splashy looking? Unless you're me - I don't use them - perhaps a subject for another day. But, I do have friends who do, and while I give them an ear-load for doing so, so be it.
I recently received a fairly strange email from a friend of mine, using Excel, in an Office 2004 environment:
"I have an excel file open with multiple tabs, but all of the tab titles are blank with the exception of the one on the screen. It happened after I copied one of them, and now all excel files I open with multiple tabs have the same issue."
Ce qui? Having never seen anything quite like this, I figured, either someone had a long night out on the town, or something freakish happened. My advice? Reboot your machine and try that again.
No good - to my surprise, not only did the issue persist, I actually got a screen-shot of it, here:
I've blurred out the cells' text to protect the innocent, but I didn't play games with Worksheets 2-4 tab names. Notice how they have no names, what-so-ever? Another issue with this Workbook is that the cell-formatting isn't correct in the Worksheets, either.
This is strange stuff. I've heard the song about having dessert on a horse with no name, but snacking while staring at a Worksheet with no name? This is new to me and, apparently, for real.
Not having a Mac close-by, where I could even attempt to replicate this strange phenomenon, I decided to scour the WWW. Oddly enough, while limited, I did get some pings, e.g.,
http://forum.soft32.com/mac/thread-sheet-tabs-ftopict82279.html
"I now noticed that if the file is double clicked to start Excel the blank sheet tabs (not really blank, just white text) will appear as with all subsequent files opened."
And the big one:
http://forum.soft32.com/mac/Text-disappears-worksheet-tabs-ftopict82593.html
"I discovered that it was due to a conflich with Acrobat's PDF Maker plug-in which was in the Excel startup folder. Once I removed it, the problem disappeared."
Spelling and terminology aside, it turns out that the Acrobat Distiller Add-in was the issue, in this case. Once she unloaded that, everything works as expected. Two thoughts:
- This only appears to be a problem with specific Excel files, although it can daisy-chain to other files in the same Excel instance
- This isn't to say all Add-ins are bad news, but some might cause problems
Part of me wonders how this Add-in managed to create this scenario? It's not normal, to say the least - is it a neat trick? I've never seen this on a PC, so I assume most readers will never run into this, and your chances of seeing this are probably slim on a Mac, as well.
This is on my top-5 of weird, unexpected, things seen in Excel, before.
Happy 4th of July!