Excel plugin Archives - Page 2 of 3

24Sep 2014 by Charlie Nichols 2 Comments

How to Show an Excel Message Box or Alert without Code

300 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Show an Excel Message Box Occasionally, you need to alert the user of a specific condition or value in your Excel workbook. For example, if a value gets higher or lower than a desired level you may wish to make that more apparent to the user. You can use the Conditional Formatting features in Excel to, say, make the field bright red. However, you would be relying on the user to view that tab or potentially scroll to that part of the worksheet to actually see the value in the first place. Alternatively, you can pop up a message box to alert the user of the condition or value. One method is to use the embedded scripting system within Excel and write some custom code to pop up…

24May 2014 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

Work Beyond Excel’s 32k Per-Cell Character Limit

300 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] The Character Limit in Excel can be Limiting - Don't let it be There is a character limit in Excel. Excel has a character limit (per cell) of 32,767 characters. And in most cases this is ample space for your needs. Sometimes You Need to Work with XML Blocks Larger Than 32k. You may have a need that resembles one of the following scenarios. You need to consume a web service that returns more than the 32k limit. You need to open a local XML file, and that file may also be larger than the 32k character limit. Meet New and Improved WEBSERVICE and FILTERXML Functions Each of the functions, including their “power” equivalent functions of pwrWEBSERVICE and pwrFILTERXML, has been enhanced in the latest version of the Excel…

23Mar 2014 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

Add Excel 2013 Functions to Excel 2010

200 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Get the Latest Excel Functions Working in Older Versions of Excel Do you have a number of Excel 2010, Excel 2007, or Excel 2003 licenses that you want or need to get another year or more of use from? Do you need to hold off on upgrading all of your licenses to Excel 2013, at least for now? But are you in need of some of the new functions that were added in Excel 2013? Perhaps you have a worksheet that was created in Excel 2013 that makes use of one or more of the new Excel functions and you need to be able to open and work with the same workbook on PCs with Excel 2010, 2007, or 2003. You can. Excel Forward Compatibility Adapter You can…

17Dec 2013 by Charlie Nichols 1 Comment

Excel WEBSERVICE Function, plus ENCODEURL and FILTERXML Make a Useful Trio of Web Functions

300 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Now, Add This New Excel 2013 Trio of Functions to Your Version of Excel Excel 2013 introduced a trio of new functions that make it easy to extend your worksheets to use XML web services. The Excel WEBSERVICE function, ENCODEURL function, and FILTERXML function work nicely together to make the task of working with web services straightforward within Excel 2013. This functionality is made available in Excel 2010, Excel 2007, and Excel 2003 in the Excel PowerUps Premium Suite add-in for Excel. This can be downloaded for free. There are many posts and videos posted on YouTube illustrating how you may use the features and seeing how many there are give you a sense for how popular of an addition these functions are to Excel. The sections below…

09Nov 2013 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

Fuzzy Search in Excel with the Fuzzy Find and Replace Tool

200 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Fuzzy Search and Replace in Excel You can find similar entries from a list or table in Excel by doing a fuzzy search in Excel. This gives you a way to consider the following to effectively be the same. John Smith Jonathan Smith Smith, John Smith, Jonathan John Q. Smith John Smyth J. Smith Johnny Smith … etc. So if you just want to look for “John Smith” and simply find those entries that are pretty close to that. You want to do a fuzzy text search (not just a wildcard search at the beginning or end of a string). This post describes how to use the Fuzzy Find and Replace feature of the Excel PowerUps add-in for Excel to find those approximate matches. Fuzzy text search in…

23Oct 2013 by Charlie Nichols 2 Comments

Fuzzy VLOOKUP in Excel

300 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] pwrVLOOKUP. Just like VLOOKUP, only Better. You can do a VLOOKUP operation in Excel and get a fuzzy match instead of being limited to the exact match function built into Excel. To do a fuzzy VLOOKUP you need to use the pwrVLOOKUP function that is part of the Excel PowerUps Premium Suite add-in which is available as a free download on this site. Usage of the pwrVLOOKUP function is very similar to the built-in VLOOKUP function. The first 3 parameters are the same (lookup value, lookup range, and column offset). The difference starts in the fourth parameter. In pwrVLOOKUP, the fourth parameter is a strength-of-match value. It is a number between 0 and 100. If you do not provide this value, an exact match (strenth-of-match = 100) is…

30Sep 2013 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

How to Generate Random Demographic Data

300 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] How to Generate Random Demographic Data Why Generate Random Demographic Data? There are several reasons I can think of that you would want to or need to generate random demographic data. They primarily center on testing scenarios. Due to the nature of the data, it may be unfeasible for you to access real data to test your application or process. You wouldn’t want to risk exposing PII (Personally Identifiable Information) or other sensitive information. Also, some of the data you may need to test would be restricted or protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and/or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). There are complex regulations that you don’t want to run afoul of, but most of all you want to protect your customer’s sensitive data –…

30Jul 2013 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

How to convert text to number values in Excel

200 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] In Excel, if you have text that represents a number that is not recognized as a number value some Excel formulas may not work correctly. In order to convert a text number into a number value you have a few options. Convert text to number First, you can just multiply the value by 1. This will force the conversion of the text into a numerical value and return the equivalent numerical value. =A1*1 Next, you can use the VALUE formula. You wind up with the same result. =VALUE(A1) Convert Roman Numeral text to number If your text is a Roman Numeral you can convert that to an equivalent numerical value (in decimal). Excel 2013 introduces a function called ARABIC that will convert roman numerals into decimal value equivalents.…

15Jul 2013 by Charlie Nichols 14 Comments

Create a trip calculator with Excel and web services

300 level, Excel

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Using Excel, you can create a trip calculator that uses web services to provide dynamic information that is up to date. I created this post after reading a post with a similar theme from Glen Gilchrist. In the example below, you'll see that you can create the trip calculator using Excel functions and without needing to write any code. Note: The illustrations below will work with Excel versions 2003 - 2010 by installing the Excel PowerUps Premium Suite. If you have Excel 2013, you can create this trip calculator without the add-in -- just remove the "pwr" prefix from the function names in the examples below. Excel 2013 already has built in WEBSERVICE and FILTERXML functions! Here's the gist of how we'll put this together For the calculator,…

28May 2013 by Charlie Nichols No Comments

Seamlessly install and deploy your Excel XLL add-in

Development, Excel, Utilities

[wp_ad_camp_1] [wp_ad_camp_4] Automatically install Excel Add-In Once you've created your Excel add-in you'll want to get it installed on your customer's instances of Excel, right? Excel add-in deployment can easily be automated using the Excel Add In Automatic Installer. As the name suggests, you can automatically install Excel add in XLLs and XLAs with this setup extension. Excel add-in deployment There are many web pages that give an overview of the steps that would need to get automated for an Excel add-in deployment - so it's doable. I spent a bunch of time culling through the advice that worked, and the advice that didn't work so well for my own Excel add-in deployment tool. I've repackaged that work into a utility that can help make your add-in get installed seamlessly. Save…