# Most common & most unusual forms of Excel abuse?



## Greg Truby (Jan 9, 2009)

A recent thread asking about how to make Excel one's default newsreader has prompted me to follow through on that which I've been ponderin' fer a while.

Most of us have seen Excel used in many situations where another application would have been a better fit. We all see it used for storing massive tables that rightfully should be in Access. We've all seen it used to write letters instead of Word. But around my workplace, the most common abuse of Excel that I see is to use it when PowerPoint should be the tool of choice. I'm not talking about charts. I can forgive anyone that wants to use Excel to show his charts in a meeting. I mean other cases involving shapes or bullet lists, clip art, etc. Around here the most common _Excel-instead-of-PowerPoint_ abuse is flowcharting. I cannot begin to guess how many process flows I have seen drawn on worksheets instead of slides. My favorites are when the person did not use shapes, but rather merged cells and used borders to create the boxes (I can only image trying to move them suckers around when you need to add or delete a step). Even better is when they also leave gridlines visible so the whole thing looks a fright. 

So what is the most common form of Excel abuse that you witness?

For a bonus, if you have seen or heard of a particularly horrid or unusual misuse of Excel please share that too. (I'm not talking the most creative _good_ use. I'm talkin' "it-was-a-bad-idea-from-the-start" stuff.)


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## NateO (Jan 9, 2009)

Are you sure about this? I was taught to use Visio for flow-charting, and it was a nightmare, perhaps out of my ignorance as to how Visio works. I tried to set up multiple tabs, kinda like Excel Worksheets, every time I opened the file, everything moved! 

However, with Excel, flow-charting is a dream. Using Autoshapes with automatic connectors and all of that, of course. Excel's the best program I've ever used for such a task, it certainly didn't feel like abuse. If Excel's wrong for this task, I don't want to be right. 

A point of clarification - are we speaking to the presentation or mapping the flow?


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## Greg Truby (Jan 9, 2009)

I left Visio out because it's not part of the standard office suites. You have to buy it separately and consequently only a handful of people have it. I never had access to it until I became an MS MVP. I played around in Visio 2007 and it looks like they've repurposed it a bit (at least from what I understood was its former focus). Still can be used for process flows, of course. But seems more for mapping networks or other types of data mapping stuff now-a-days. 

As far as process flows goes, yeah, I'm sure. Maybe if you want to do some big monster process flow that you could only print out using the engineering department's plotter, then okay, I can see using Excel because you have a huge canvass to draw on. But we've all been in meetings where nobody more then 8' from the screen can read anything on the flow chart because the presenter has stuffed way too many steps onto one screenful. For _presenting_ flowcharts in meetings, I do think PowerPoint is the proper tool.  *Especially* if they did as I describe above and failed to use shapes to create the flowchart.


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## Jon von der Heyden (Jan 9, 2009)

Oh I like Visio! I'm with Truby on this, my experience of flow charts in Excel is that they are messy. I get what you are saying Nate, about connectors, and I would prefer Excel over say powerpoint or word for flow charting, but for me Visio offers so much more. And of course flow charts drawn in Visio can be embedded into powerpoint. 

Powerpoint is, IMHO, a horrible application. Or rather, the way people use it is particularly nasty. Too many over-enthusiastic users end up cramming the slides full of animation. Yuk! I don't like slides, I want spreadsheets where I can scrutinise every number presented. That is provided the authors don't turn all formula's into constants!  For me, it's all about transparency. I much prefer to pull up a spreadsheet on the big screen - that way I can satisfy questions over the integrity of the results presented.

But where I work, the most likely abuse of Excel is choice to use it over MS Access. Not enough of my colleagues understand Access, and not enough know that data can be housed in Access and summary tables used in Excel linked to that Access data.

Furthermore, I think Excel is abused where it is used to track and maintain budgets and forecasts that rightfully belong in the ERP system (in our case SAP). Sure, Excel is a great toold for the development of budgets and forecasts, but once developed they should be loaded to avoid messy consolidations of actuals and budget / forecast data.


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 9, 2009)

Greg Truby said:


> I left Visio out because it's not part of the standard office suites.



Greg, is the same not true of Access ?
EDIT: and FrontPage for that matter... I thought there were only available under certain licences as opposed to the bog standard ?


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## Greg Truby (Jan 9, 2009)

DonkeyOte said:


> Greg, is the same not true of Access?


 

Luke,

Access, at least, is included in Office Professional and Office Ultimate. Visio is not in any of the office packages.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101635841033.aspx?ofcresset=1


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## VoG (Jan 9, 2009)

Guilty as charged m'lud 

I've used Excel to draw flowsheets and even pretty complex process diagrams with tanks, pumps, valves and so on. Those little light grey rectangles make it soo easy to get things lined up


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## Richard Schollar (Jan 9, 2009)

I've used Excel as my webbrowser cos then it looks like I don't have tinternet open at work (well, in case anyone looks at my taskbar). It worked for a while before people realised I wasn't being quite as dedicated as they thought...


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## schielrn (Jan 9, 2009)

One thing I really use to hate was Excel charts. I remember in High School we had to create a spreasdsheet and then create a chart to display our findings. Well I couldn't get the dang on thing to look how I wanted to in Excel 97 maybe 2000? So I just brought up paint and made my own chart with the data series and labels and everything that I felt Excel should have been able to do. I ended up getting an A and having the teacher display my chart, showing what magnificent things Excel can do.


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## arkusM (Jan 9, 2009)

I have not been around enough to see these abuses... but the funnist things I have seen excel used for is as a paper ledger.
I witnessed a person actually calculate a number with a tape calculater then input the result into excel.......... 

So in my case I would have ticked "they should have used a calculator"??


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 9, 2009)

Greg Truby said:


> Luke,
> 
> Access, at least, is included in Office Professional and Office Ultimate. Visio is not in any of the office packages.
> 
> http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101635841033.aspx?ofcresset=1



Just goes to show how "frugal" my last place was ... we weren't allowed to develop with Access as we didn't have enough enough licences to distribute the application company wide ... well that was what they _told_ me... ho hum... direct consequence of which however was turning to MySQL & learning asp so as they say "every cloud..."  ... I know a lot of you love your Access ...

A question for those that use MS Access every day... do you think if your company were starting again from scratch today that they or indeed you would advocate Access over say a DB/webclient type approach ?  

I've often wondered as to whether or not Access today is to some extent a legacy product and continues to exist because it is just too hard to contemplate transitioning existing applications from it... I know most major companies use it... I say all this having little experience of it other than a brief sojourn with Access2000 ... I'm sure things are very different now.

Sorry for the hijack...

Like everyone else -- XL being used as a db has to be the predominant flaw surely ?


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 9, 2009)

arkusM said:


> I have not been around enough to see these abuses... but the funnist things I have seen excel used for is as a paper ledger.
> I witnessed a person actually calculate a number with a tape calculater then input the result into excel..........
> 
> So in my case I would have ticked "they should have used a calculator"??


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## arkusM (Jan 9, 2009)

arkusM said:


> I have not been around enough to see these abuses... but the funnist things I have seen excel used for is as a paper ledger.
> I witnessed a person actually calculate a number with a tape calculater then input the result into excel..........
> 
> So in my case I would have ticked "they should have used a calculator"??


 

Actually thinking about, would a *"they should have USED Excel"* option be legite?


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## Oorang (Jan 9, 2009)

How about Excel when you should have used project? It really is a better tool in many cases.


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 10, 2009)

DonkeyOte said:


> Just goes to show how "frugal" my last place was ... we weren't allowed to develop with Access as we didn't have enough enough licences to distribute the application company wide ... well that was what they _told_ me... ho hum... direct consequence of which however was turning to MySQL & learning asp so as they say "every cloud..."  ... I know a lot of you love your Access ...
> 
> A question for those that use MS Access every day... do you think if your company were starting again from scratch today that they or indeed you would advocate Access over say a DB/webclient type approach ?
> 
> ...



Certainly with the stuff I do, trying to turn Excel into a database is a major abuse. 

And to answer some of the Access questions -- 
Whether you would start with Access or something else depends on what you need, and what expertise you can get your hands on. I've spent quite a bit of time over the past few years using Access to hold, or repurpose, forecast data that was generated in Excel or Cognos. 
Access was always intended to be a workgroup-sized database, and it excels there is used properly (pun intended). Taking it to the enterprise level demands skills that your average Access dude won't necessarily have, but it makes a great front end for enterprise DBs like SQL Server. 
And is it a legacy app? Not in my opinion. MS did a lot of work in Office 2007 turning it into the rich client for Sharepoint. That's a major part of Access' future but there will always be need for desktop databases, and Access does that job very well. 

Re using Visio, that's my weapon of choice for flowcharts. It's got a bit of a learning curve so you don't go nuts, but it's very quick and does the job. 
That said, if I'm just putting together something small I'll fire up Excel or Powerpoint. 

Denis


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## texasalynn (Jan 10, 2009)

I have never understood why Excel is used for letter writing.  I have seen them use a text box that they sized to the precise area and then when the writing is beyond that size, they want to know what is wrong with Excel for not printing everything.

I agree about the abuse of Excel vs Access - but most companies won't fork over the $$$$$ to have it available.

Where I used to work we found a read-only Access, and so I was able to create forms so that everyone could use the database.  Just no changes.  Was pretty slick.


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## mole999 (Jan 10, 2009)

We have the full office suite for everyone, the IT department, don't like us developing anything, so software in place and freedom stifiled


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## Peter_SSs (Jan 10, 2009)

RichardSchollar said:


> I've used Excel as my webbrowser cos then it looks like I don't have tinternet open at work (well, in case anyone looks at my taskbar). It worked for a while before people realised I wasn't being quite as dedicated as they thought...




What trick do you use now? Must be somethin' 'cos your're here way too often when you should be working! At least that's what my emails to your boss are saying. 




arkusM said:


> I have not been around enough to see these abuses...
> I witnessed a person actually calculate a number with a tape calculater then input the result into excel


If it's only *a* person, then you're right - you haven't been around long enough! I've seen this quite a bit. I think the users think Excel just has grey lines everywhere so that you can line up numbers nicely - and you can put a nice straight line above your total!

Most common abuse where I work, is using Excel instead of Word, though at least I haven't noticed it being used for letter writing.


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## Andrew Fergus (Jan 10, 2009)

Peter_SSs said:


> Most common abuse where I work, is using Excel instead of Word, though at least I haven't noticed it being used for letter writing.


In addition to seeing used as a database, the 2nd most common abuse I see is using it as a letter writer.  Very frustrating......


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## RoryA (Jan 11, 2009)

Avoiding Access is the most common abuse I see, but my favourite is their avoidance of Outlook/Exchange. A bunch of our guys go to conferences quite regularly, and for each one the scheduling 'application' is an Excel workbook with one sheet for each day and lots of ridiculous macros and filters to try and produce reports for where each individual will be! 
Of course, in a radical move to reduce productivity, we will apparently be switching to Notes this year, so maybe it does make sense for it to be in Excel...


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## Domski (Jan 12, 2009)

rorya said:


> Of course, in a radical move to reduce productivity, we will apparently be switching to Notes this year, so maybe it does make sense for it to be in Excel...


 
OMG, what are they thinking!!! I've been forced to use Notes for the last five years and I hate it with a passion. Fortunately Leeds City Council have just signed a major deal with MS so we should be getting Outlook in the not too distant future.

In my humble opinion one of the greatest abuses of Excel is when people have four spreadsheets doing what could essentially be done in one and then spend most of their day transferring data from one to the other.

The letter writing in Excel was more prelevent at my last job as hardly anyone did anything complicated enough to demand Access but in general I would say that trying to set up complex mutli-user systems in Excel is the greatest no-no I see these days.

Dom


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## RoryA (Jan 12, 2009)

Our US parent company uses Notes and I guess misery loves company...


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## MorganO (Jan 12, 2009)

RichardSchollar said:


> I've used Excel as my webbrowser cos then it looks like I don't have tinternet open at work (well, in case anyone looks at my taskbar). It worked for a while before people realised I wasn't being quite as dedicated as they thought...


 
Using Excel as a web browswer? You've piqued my interest. I know that you can use VBA to do some web queries, but how would you set it up to to act like a full browser? 

Opps, I'm falling into that evil trap of wanting to abuse Excel!!!  Bad me!

Owen

(No, really, how do you do it!)


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## schielrn (Jan 12, 2009)

rorya said:


> Our US parent company uses Notes and I guess misery loves company...


My company has finally made the right decision by going from Notes to Outlook. I'm excited for the 2Q this year because we will be on Outlook and be using SharePoint.

Its about time I don't have to keep messing around with Notes.

More of this  and less of this  hopefully.


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## Cbrine (Jan 12, 2009)

The way that I did that was to add a microsoft Internet explorer control and some basic controls to it.  A web address text box, a back and a forward control, and BANG, you have a web browser imbedded in an excel sheet.

Cal


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## Greg Truby (Jan 12, 2009)

rorya said:


> Of course, in a radical move to reduce productivity, we will apparently be switching to Notes this year, so maybe it does make sense for it to be in Excel...


Dat ain't _Excel abuse,_ Rory. That's just abuse. Perhaps there are shelters in the UK? Or at least some type of counselling hotline to talk you off the ledge?


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## RoryA (Jan 12, 2009)

One of our IT guys merrily said: "Lotus Notes has a user base of about 118 million. All but three of them hate it." Of course, it's not his call, as he's too sensible!


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## Oorang (Jan 12, 2009)

What in the world drove that decision?


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## RoryA (Jan 12, 2009)

Thousands of users over in the states already on Notes; just a few hundred over here happy on Outlook. Cheaper to make everyone miserable than happy I guess...


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 12, 2009)

Any of your board members non-execs at IBM 

Edit: if you hurry you might just make the conference


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## RoryA (Jan 12, 2009)

I can't even make the Summit this year, so I'm definitely not going to *that*!


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## Patience (Jan 12, 2009)

Notes? Dear GOD! I have just left a job that used Notes. I even asked in interview for this job what the email tool used was. I would have considered turning it down if the answer was Notes.

However we use Thunderbird which doesn't seem a whole lot better. Different bad, but seemingly bad none the less.

I voted for Should have used Powerpoint.


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## RoryA (Jan 12, 2009)

You guys are really cheering me up!


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 12, 2009)

Have you not used it before ?

I've not used it myself but my wife did at her last place... when I saw the interface without knowledge of what it was I actually presumed it was an in-house build... if you've ever seen say screenshots of say Championship Manager 1994 you'll have a pretty good idea of what it looks like !


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## RoryA (Jan 12, 2009)

I used it about 10 or so years ago, so am hoping it has improved since then! If not, I may resign and go freelance.


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## Domski (Jan 12, 2009)

rorya said:


> I used it about 10 or so years ago, so am hoping it has improved since then! If not, I may resign and go freelance.


 
I just always assumed it was a poor implementation of it here but if it's like this everywhere then nope it hasn't improved one bit


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## Patience (Jan 13, 2009)

Yeah. You totally need to resign.


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## Richard Schollar (Jan 13, 2009)

I last used Notes regularly 10 years ago.  I still have palpitations when i think what a horrendous system it was (I didn't know any better at the time though).

I then used it very briefly about 5 years ago.  It hadn't changed and was still just as irritating as ever it was.


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 13, 2009)

rorya said:


> I used it about 10 or so years ago, so am hoping it has improved since then! If not, I may resign and go freelance.



I hope you won't be using Excel to write your letter of resignation...


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## RoryA (Jan 13, 2009)

DonkeyOte said:


> I hope you won't be using Excel to write your letter of resignation...


 
I will be using Excel to compose it, sing it (embedded copy of Jonny Paycheck's "Take this job and shove it") and mail it to my employers!


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## Expiry (Jan 13, 2009)

I have used Excel for flowcharts and high level plans, when perhaps I should have used Powerpoint. I do like powerpoint though, but I'm just comfortable with Excel.

Try listing all of your tasks/ names for a flowchart on one sheet, then use the camera tool to take a picture of each one and use those as your flowchart boxes, instead of text boxes. Why? Because you can then use conditional formatting on the cells, which then copies to the flowchart. It also makes it easier to update if you have all your entries in a list, rather than skipping from box to box.

I have definitely used Excel when perhaps I should have used Word, because I HATE WORD!!!! It's the most user-unfriendly application ever. Font size changing when you delete a line and sometimes you can't place things easily like you can in excel or PPT.

Word out!


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## Patience (Jan 13, 2009)

I agree with your comments about Word - but I always assumed that was because I am an Excel person, not a Word person. Some people love it.

What does annoy me, though, is those people who create a table in Word and fill in the pretty boxes (using a calculator when necessary). Why not use Excel to fill in those pretty boxes? Not the best use of Excel, maybe, but surely better than Word???



Edit - hey - I just noticed - I have 222 posts, you have 333. Spooky? (Or just me being geeky?)


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## Gerald Higgins (Jan 13, 2009)

They should have used a die ?

Once used Excel for making a "whose turn is it to make the coffee" application.

Don't tell Expiry, but it very rarely came up with my name


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## Gerald Higgins (Jan 13, 2009)

Patience said:


> (Or just me being geeky?)


 
errr, I thought that's why all of us are here


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## Domski (Jan 13, 2009)

Gerald Higgins said:


> errr, I thought that's why all of us are here



I thought it was because it was Tuesday and I was trying to avoid going to the pub. Smeg!!!


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## Gerald Higgins (Jan 13, 2009)

Can't you take your laptop to the pub ?


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## Norie (Jan 13, 2009)

Gerald Higgins said:


> Can't you take your laptop to the pub ?


What? In Leeds?

I know Edinburger is a genteel place but some of those English northern towns, I don't know.

Mind you, if the laptop is heavy enough you could maybe use it to protect yourself.

But there's also the chance that someone might lose some data if you do.


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 13, 2009)

> I have definitely used Excel when perhaps I should have used Word, because I HATE WORD!!!! It's the most user-unfriendly application ever. Font size changing when you delete a line and sometimes you can't place things easily like you can in excel or PPT.
> 
> Word out!


 
Word's fine for what it does. It's a lousy drawing tool, calculator and database, and I've seen it used for all of those things, but if you need to write a structured document and you understand Styles, it's great. Which could lead to a side-track on abuses of Word... 

Don't get me started on Word VBA, though -- that's an exercise in head-banging if I ever saw one. 

Denis


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## Fazza (Jan 13, 2009)

*Most common & most unusual forms of Excel abuse? *Self abuse  - plain & simple misuse of Excel. Doing tasks the wrong way!


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## Greg Truby (Jan 14, 2009)

Fazza said:


> *Most common & most unusual forms of ... abuse? *Self abuse...


 
Just mouse away, Greg, just mouse away.  Don't make the moderators for the lounge have to decide whether you went over the line... just mouse away...


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## Expiry (Jan 15, 2009)

Norie said:


> What? In Leeds?
> 
> I know Edinburger is a genteel place but some of those English northern towns, I don't know.
> 
> ...



I heard there were quite a few "laptop" bars in Leeds. Or did I mishear?

Oh, no! Now I have 334 posts!


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## schielrn (Jan 15, 2009)

Expiry said:


> Oh, no! Now I have 334 posts!


Your still at 333 as Lounge posts don't count towards post count.


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## Expiry (Jan 15, 2009)

schielrn said:


> Your still at 333 as Lounge posts don't count towards post count.



What? Then why am I wasting my time in here. I need to get out where it matters.


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## Domski (Jan 16, 2009)

Expiry said:


> I heard there were quite a few "laptop" bars in Leeds. Or did I mishear?
> 
> Oh, no! Now I have 334 posts!


 
Dunno, I've never had the pleasure of a laptop and wheeling my desktop down to the laptop bar just might not be considered PC!


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 16, 2009)

As a general rule I don't think they approve of anything that may or may not harbour a floppy.


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## Domski (Jan 16, 2009)

There's nothing wrong with my floppy drive!!!


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## MorganO (Jan 16, 2009)

Domski said:


> There's nothing wrong with my floppy drive!!!


 
I put some 'ZIP' into my old floppy drive, but my system wasn't interested. Turned me down for a Flash USB drive...


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## steve case (Jan 21, 2009)

I wouldn't touch Access with a ten foot pole!  

I thought the categories were going to be Merging Cells and a few other no nos.


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## swaatacba (Jan 21, 2009)

It's a pleasure to know that I'm not quite such a fruit loop about the advantages/value of Excel over almost everything else.

Although for those of us who are still pre 2007 the limitation on the number of rows can be an irritation, but mostly we have Access as a storage medium. I have occasionally resorted to data storage in text files using VBA to select the records I want and post into Excel.


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## Oorang (Jan 21, 2009)

steve case said:


> I wouldn't touch Access with a ten foot pole!


It's just as well, I don't think you have one of those in your inventory.


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## Norie (Jan 21, 2009)

I've got a ten foot pole and frequently implement it's use, some of which are:

Turning on/off the PC from the other side of the room - I'm lazy.

Bashing the PC when some stupid message comes up at start-up telling me (or is it the ghost in the machine) hasn't shut-down properly.

Whacking the monitor when what I'm trying to do isn't returning the correct, in my opinion anyway, result.

And lastly to whack myself over the head when I realise the previous problem was my own fault.


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## Jon von der Heyden (Jan 21, 2009)

I think I need one of those!  

I'll add an additional use:  trip up unsuspecting passers by!


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## texasalynn (Jan 21, 2009)

Can I run with it down the hall and poke someone's eye out?


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## Oorang (Jan 21, 2009)

Do you intend to be able to return?


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## Norie (Jan 21, 2009)

How about jousting?

Or quiclky poking people turning back to the computer and shrugging when they ask 'Who did that?'

Or poking peoples who can't spell or type propperlies.

And I think I'll leave out the idea of a giant pencil-tpye shatner (swear it's the keyboard causing the typos and bad Kelsey - it's almost as evil as the mouse  ), don't want any injury claims.


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## Zack Barresse (Jan 21, 2009)

It appears I was the only one who voted for should have used Outlook.  I've seen that more than anything.  It's most likely partly because of me insisting that even if it should be in Access, I'll just do it in Excel anyway.    Anyway, interesting poll.


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## Norie (Jan 21, 2009)

Oops.

Forgot this was a poll and haven't actually voted yet.

I'll rectify that in a moment.

Can you guess what my vote is yet?

PS Don't see an option for using Notepad.


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## arkusM (Jan 22, 2009)

does this count??
http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php/oddity/excel_as_a_drawing_tool/


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## Patience (Jan 22, 2009)

I'd say that's a contender...


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## yytsunamiyy (Jan 22, 2009)

arkusM said:


> does this count??
> http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php/oddity/excel_as_a_drawing_tool/



THAT is just plain wrong. 

Anyway, browsing the very same site I cam across this lovely little oddity.
The funny part is - it is even in the German excel version I'm using - all nicely translated...


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## arkusM (Jan 23, 2009)

yytsunamiyy said:


> THAT is just plain wrong.
> 
> Anyway, browsing the very same site I cam across this lovely little oddity.
> The funny part is - it is even in the German excel version I'm using - all nicely translated...


 

Nice... 
I wonder if the help files are run through an automated translator? They do support a lot of languages. I wonder if such translations would be as butchered as much as some the to-english translations I see in "instruction" manuals?!


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## yytsunamiyy (Jan 23, 2009)

Well, if they are run through an automated translator, it is pretty good. Apart from being completly useless most of the time time anyway, the help file's language at least does not add to the confusion...


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## tja128 (Feb 11, 2009)

The worst situation I had received a support call on a workbook that contained a gantt chart, tasks, subtasks, and more.  A novice user made the call as the manager created it and wanted the user to enter data in it.  The spreadsheet used if/then statements and conditional formatting.  The gannt bars were created based on entry in the tasks/dates.  Yes, MS Project is annoying, but using a spreadsheet with hundreds of if/then statements was just a bad idea.


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## texasalynn (Feb 12, 2009)

here is another use of excel abuse
http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=370881


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## SydneyGeek (Feb 12, 2009)

tja128 said:


> The worst situation I had received a support call on a workbook that contained a gantt chart, tasks, subtasks, and more. A novice user made the call as the manager created it and wanted the user to enter data in it. The spreadsheet used if/then statements and conditional formatting. The gannt bars were created based on entry in the tasks/dates. Yes, MS Project is annoying, but using a spreadsheet with hundreds of if/then statements was just a bad idea.


 
Yeah. they could have imported the whole thing into Visio and maintained it there... 

Denis


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## Oorang (Feb 13, 2009)

Hey I _like_ project. People who bash it, usually are just upset because they have to learn something new.


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## Angie1313 (Feb 16, 2009)

Oorang said:


> Hey I _like_ project. People who bash it, usually are just upset because they have to learn something new.




I have to agree.  It certainly find it makes some projects much easier.


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