Job Skills - Excel 07

Excel 07 charts: The Good and the oh so BAD

2010-01-28T07:45:00.000-08:00

Excel 2007 charting is absolutely delightful. The color splashes are beautiful, fresh, and just COOL! I couldn't wait to get started using them, afterall it was the main reason I upgraded to the 07 package.

And then I discovered a "teensy little problem". Ugh. My file sizes were gigantic. Even if I saved them as .pdf's, they were still un-mailable, often breaching the 3 mb size, which is just rude. After a few tests, I finally solved the mystery of the ballooning file size...

The problem is that Excel 07 charts use gradient colors on each data point. So even when I opened them in my trusty Excel 03, the large file size remained. After running tests on colors, the "only" solution was take the charts back to a uniform flat color. No gradients allowed if the desired result is small file or .pdf size.

A gradient is a slow fade of a color. To accomplish this they have to use thousands of color shades to mimic the fade effect. Color to the computer is heavier than text. And thousands of colors is equivalent to a huge brick.

So a chart with one color may be only a 35 kb file. But the same chart with thousands of colors on each datapoint will be a 3MB file.

I'll still use the 07 charts because they are SO COOL!
But I won't get fancy if the final result needs to be a small file size.

Print Excel Comments

2009-11-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

First of all, what is an Excel comment?

Open a spreadsheet, and in any cell hit your right-mouse button.

Choose "Insert Comment" and you will see a little yellow post-it appear.

Type anything in it and click away from it. A small red triangle is left in the cell. The triangle will not print, but if you float your mouse over it, you will see your note.

It is occassionaly a good idea to leave notes in your spreadsheets for newcomers, or just reminders to yourself about figurs posted in your sheet.

Sometimes it's nice to have all the notes printed. Here's how...

There are 2 options: "At end of sheet" or "As displayed on sheet".

Excel 2003:
Go to File, Page Setup, Sheet tab, and in the middle beside "Comments"
click the down arrow and choose an option. "At end of sheet" or
"As displayed on sheet".

Excel 2007:
On the Page Layout ribbon, in the Page Setup group, click the gray
arrow in the bottom right corner of the group.
On the Sheet tab, in the middle beside "Comments" click the down arrow
and choose an option. "At end of sheet" or "As displayed on sheet".

The 2 Step Chart

2009-11-13T20:14:00.003-08:00

If you enter any block of data into Excel, you can have a chart in 2 quick steps:

1. Click into one cell of the data
(Excel will assume all adjacent cells should be included.)

2. Hit the F11 key at the top of your keyboard.

Shazam! There's your 2 step chart!

To make changes to the chart, right click and use the chart toolbar or ribbon at the top.

To delete the chart, right click the chart sheet tab below the screen and select "Delete".

Add Columns and Rows in a Snap

2009-11-13T20:14:00.001-08:00

Adding new columns within your Excel spreadsheet is super easy:
Right Click, Insert, Columns.

And then I learned a new way last week and just shook my head.
(Old dog, new trick syndrome...)

This works on Rows or Columns:
Click the row or column header (A,B,C.. or 1,2,3..)
Press CTRL + (plus sign) to add a column or row
Press CTRL - (minus sign) to delete a column or row

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2009-01-28T08:42:00.000-08:00

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