# Mistakes we know (but we still make them)



## Gettingbetter (Oct 5, 2007)

I was reading something about the Refedit control earlier today, and the person said, When in the define names box 
"I always click the left arrow key (which as we all know selects a cell), I know I need to press F2 before, but never remember"

It made me laugh because there are loads of mistakes I constantly make that I know I shouldn't, so I thought id list some and see if you lot have any.

Yesterday, I coded into a spreadsheet before close, saved = true so that people didn't get the save as box on a read only document, but then closed the spreadsheet and didn't get the save option (I did it twice). I know I should save before closing (not just in that situation where it is obvious, but just as general good practice), but have stupidly relied on the close box for too long now.

When your set in your ways its hard to change


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## Boller (Oct 5, 2007)

"If I had to live my life again I'd make all the same mistakes - only sooner." Tallulah Bankhead

If a person were able to avoid making the same mistake twice, he would surely find plenty of new mistakes.


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## Lewiy (Oct 5, 2007)

I have a workbook which contains 31 daily worksheets which I fill in with remittance information from the bank and print off on a daily basis.  It is done in such a way that I always need to change the print area everytime before printing because the size of the worksheet data varies so much.  Invariabley, despite doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY, I click print without setting the print area and waste 2/3 sheets of paper.


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## litrelord (Oct 5, 2007)

> I always need to change the print area everytime before printing



Could you not set up a dynamic range for that? 

Just a thought. 

The F2 thing is hugely annoying. 

I always forget to turn off "Do not send fonts to Adobe PDF" and then have to cancel the macro and start again. Probably a way to turn it off permanently but I haven't found it if there is.


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## Lewiy (Oct 5, 2007)

> Could you not set up a dynamic range for that?



I know there are various solutions to this, I just never got around to sorting it out because there are much more important things to be done.  (plus my colleagues are starting to get annoyed with me “improving” all of their spreadsheets, they like things to be awkward to do, but simple to understand, so I try to avoid “messing” with anything other than my own personal workbooks now, even if it’s stuff they wouldn’t notice!!)


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## Gettingbetter (Oct 5, 2007)

> they like things to be awkward to do


Ive been there   
My dads the worst, no matter how many times I try and make things easier for him, he still rather do it the long way.
He infuriates me further by constantly telling me Lotus 123 is better than Excel (he's getting old and clearly loosing his mind)


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## litrelord (Oct 5, 2007)

Yeah, know that feeling too. Along with watching the people I sit with print out bits of paper and then type them into another program because they don't like using copy and paste (they're actually very good at their jobs just not great with technology).

Just made one of the mistakes I do a lot and hadn't thought about earlier. I just did A September report and forgot to do saveas. I've now just wiped the August report 

actually I have it but only a no-formulas version so I can't go back and change it easily if I need to. 

TGIF


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## ExcelChampion (Oct 5, 2007)

I always type "Rnage" instead of "Range".  Don't know why, but I do...then I have to correct it.


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## erik.van.geit (Oct 5, 2007)

Do a search for "marco"...
Why would that name be so popular on this Board?  

By the way, why do it with a marco while you can do it with forumlas?


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## Lewiy (Oct 8, 2007)

> Do a search for "marco"...
> Why would that name be so popular on this Board?



  

If I ever have kids, I'm gonna call them all Marco as it seems to be such a popular name among Excel users!!

I always wonder how many instances are genuine spelling mistakes and how many people sit there cursing their marco's out loud..........


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## Domski (Oct 8, 2007)

> they like things to be awkward to do



We use Excel for our timesheets at work. After every four weeks you clear out the previous one and then supposedly save as with the new period as the name. I was forever just clicking save when I'd cleared out my times for the last period and losing the info so I cracked the password and updated the code to automatically save as with the name as the end of the new period.

I then offered to update anyones in the building who required it but out of about 150 people 3 took me up on the offer. Today was the start of a new 4 week period and I've already seen 4 people come and take the signing in book back to their desk to re-create their time sheets. Bless them!!!


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## erik.van.geit (Oct 8, 2007)

Never heard of "xlt" files?


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## Domski (Oct 8, 2007)

"Never heard of "xlt" files?"

Sure, but in this case it was a 2 min job to just change a little code in the existing workbook that had a couple of flaws.


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