Storing big blocks of text in excel is a bit jerky - is there a workaround?

[jmatty2000]

Hi there,

In my job I have to investigate server crashes / issues and often I find errors on servers. And I try to use Excel as much as I can for my note-taking or any excuse I can.

ok, so I have a spreadsheet where I've inserted a text box to insert these stack errors - below is an example of the kind of text I want to keep in my workbooks, while I am investigating a server problem for example.

What I find is that when I scroll up and down my spreadsheet is that it tend to jump 3 cells at time when I scrolling past the text box. This makes it easy then for me to accidentally miss seeing some information about the error that I would have seen if the spreadsheet scrolls 1 cell at a time. In other words, when I put a text box in excel, everything seems a bit jerky and not nice to work with.

Does anyone have ideas how I can store blocks of text in excel to have a nicer experience please.

Kind Regards
Matt

This is invented text that I might have to deal with just so you can get a feel - as you have see, the text has very few carriage returns and difficult to interpret even as its stands :

private Random _random = new Random(); public MainPage(){ InitializeComponent(); GenerateAnswerElementsPosition();}private void GenerateAnswerElementsPosition()
{List<int> busyNumList = ShuffleList(1, 4); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer1, busyNumList[0]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer2, busyNumList[1]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer3, busyNumList[2]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer4, busyNumList[3]);}private void SetElementRow(UIElement element, int row){element.SetValue(Grid.RowProperty, row);}private List<int> ShuffleList(int min, int max){ List<int> list = new List<int>(); while (list.Count < max) { int rnd = _random.Next(min, max + 1); if (list.Count == 0 || !list.Contains(rnd)) list.Add(rnd);} return list; }private Random _random = new Random(); public MainPage(){ InitializeComponent(); GenerateAnswerElementsPosition();}private void GenerateAnswerElementsPosition(){List<int> busyNumList = ShuffleList(1, 4); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer1, busyNumList[0]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer2, busyNumList[1]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer3, busyNumList[2]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer4, busyNumList[3]);}private void SetElementRow(UIElement element, int row){element.SetValue(Grid.RowProperty, row);}private List<int> ShuffleList(int min, int max){ List<int> list = new List<int>(); while (list.Count < max) { int rnd = _random.Next(min, max + 1); if (list.Count == 0 || !list.Contains(rnd)) list.Add(rnd);} return list; }private Random _random = new Random(); public MainPage(){ InitializeComponent(); GenerateAnswerElementsPosition();}private void GenerateAnswerElementsPosition(){List<int> busyNumList = ShuffleList(1, 4); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer1, busyNumList[0]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer2, busyNumList[1]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer3, busyNumList[2]); this.SetElementRow(this.tbAnswer4, busyNumList[3]);}
private void SetElementRow(UIElement element, int row){element.SetValue(Grid.RowProperty, row);}private List<int> ShuffleList(int min, int max){ List<int> list = new List<int>(); while (list.Count < max) { int rnd = _random.Next(min, max + 1); if (list.Count == 0 || !list.Contains(rnd)) list.Add(rnd);-} return list; }

 

[6StringJazzer]

Do you really need to store the text in Excel, or do you just need to have it available for reference? I would put each block of text in a .txt file and then put a link in Excel to open the file if needed.

Another option is to use Word instead of Excel. It doesn't sound like you need to do any calculations.

Excel is really good at numbers, and not so good at text.

 

[jmatty2000]

Hi Jeff, I also want to use excel for doing pivot charts so I want excel to be my complete world - otherwise I will probably end up forgetting all the excel features and shortcuts as well etc....

I have never thought much about keeping blocks of text separately and setting up a link - it could be a bit of extra hassle I suppose but I might have no other option perhaps. That also means a bit of extra hassle each time I want to take a look at the block of text - I might be in one part of my spreadsheet then have to go find the link to the document and wait for it to load in front of my spreadsheet - it something for me to think about. This would be like a new trick for me to learn perhaps - if you have any tips for me on this please.

Since I posted this , I watched a very old youtube video about using the Text Box, and it looked like the scrolling works better if you use the scroll-bars rather than the mouse-roller which is what I prefer.

Just a shame its not a more smooth experience with the text box - a colleague of mine as well said that he doesn't use excel to store the large blocks of texts because its not easy to work with - but I am determined to persevere. I can also have a play with the fonts / paragraph spacing to see if the helps.