Easy as 1-2-3

[dave3009]

Hi Folks

Just wanted to post a gripe. I always believe that a spreadie should be simple to use. As an experienced user I'd expect that the most basic of users should be able to open up a spreadsheet and without instruction use it.

I recently recieved a spreadhseet which took me about 10 minutes to download through our email system and then when I opened it I was confused on it's purpose, how to use it, why it was created the way it was created.

Eventually I found a thread of what it was built on, redrafted it and took it from 100Mb to around 40Kb and made it work on a simple principle. Pick team, Pick your territory, pick the sales zone

Is the ethos of 'Easy as 1-2-3' still about or is it a thing of the past.

Kind Regards


Dave

 

[MorganO]

I understand your frustration! I work in an environment where I receive documents on a continual basis and am amazed at the convoluted methods that people go to in order to present data.

But I do have sympathy for most of these people, because they are doing the best they can, with the knowledge they have. I can clearly remember my first days of using Excel and thinking - what a stupid piece of software, all these little boxes to put numbers and words in - how useless! But then I saw a co-worker put '=A1+B1 in a cell and I said 'Wow! You can program in Excel?!?' My world changed, but my first workbooks were atrocious! I didn't have enough knowledge of Excel to know the power of it, and the simpler ways to do things - so I brute forced things to happen!

But I ramble. I guess that is why I am here - you are here to, to pass on your assistance to those with less skill, and to increase your own. Maybe we should send these people who frustrate us so a link to mrexcel.com!

Take care.

Owen

 

[steve case]

I didn't have enough knowledge of Excel to know the power of it, and the simpler ways to do things - so I brute forced things to happen!

Same here! I've redone some of my earlier "Toys" as I didn't want anyone to ever see how ineptly I programmed them.

For example I didn't know about "Paste Special Transpose" so I did it in VBA one cell at a time, and I made my own VLOOKUP routine in VBA. Hey! It worked!

 

[SydneyGeek]

I didn't have enough knowledge of Excel to know the power of it, and the simpler ways to do things - so I brute forced things to happen!

Same here! I've redone some of my earlier "Toys" as I didn't want anyone to ever see how ineptly I programmed them.

For example I didn't know about "Paste Special Transpose" so I did it in VBA one cell at a time, and I made my own VLOOKUP routine in VBA. Hey! It worked!

Absolutely. It doesn't matter what the app is, your first attempts make you cringe when you look back later. Some of it comes down to not knowing what features an application has, but sometimes it's because you know one app fairly well and you try to do a job that is better suited to a different application altogether.

For example, have you ever seen / used...

Calculations in a Word table
An attempt at a full-on form letter in Excel
An org chart in Excel

There are better tools for all of these but people don't stray out of their comfort zones much. And they end up creating bloated, inefficient garbage for some other poor ****** to fix up.

Denis

 

[Lewiy]

Same here! I've redone some of my earlier "Toys" as I didn't want anyone to ever see how ineptly I programmed them.

I'm constantly updating my code, even stuff I did last month! Every day seems to present a new technique which makes things run ever more smoothly and efficiently and all thanks to MrExcel.com