Camera Tool

[hatman]

I stumbled across this article on John Walkenbach's site a while ago, and sorta filed it away for future reference. At the time, it seemed like one of those obscure tools that you wouldn't have much use for, until you REALLY needed it... if ever

I finally found a use for this tool, in an application where nothing else seemed to do the trick (except VBA code, which I wanted to avoid for a variety of reasons).

Most of us have at least played with Dynamic Charts (using Dynamic Named Ranges) enough to understand how they work. Well, I built a simple one yesterday, for my boss to use while I am on vacation. All he needs to do is paste in the data, and the graph updates to the new data, regardless of how many rows are in the data set. Fine. But what about the Text Box on the graph the summarizes a few parameters of the data (Maximum, Minimum, Etc). Normally, this info would need to be copied from the Worksheet Cells, and pasted/input manually. Instead, I devoted several cells to formulaically generate the full text of the Text Box, based on the calculated values. Then I inserted a Linked Picture of those cells to replace the static Text Box on the graph. SLICK!

So anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else has had any neat applications of the Camera Tool.

 

[Domski]

It's main use for me is allowing me to create complex tables of data on separate sheets and then bring them together on one for conversion into pdf files. It saves messing about with merging cells etc

Not what you call flash but it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Dom

 

[ExcelChampion]

I used it as a character counter on a form that needed to limit the number of characters...in other words, it let the user know how many characters he had left. HOWEVER, I didn't want the character counter to print. Being an object, you can choose whether to have it print or not. It worked very well.

 

[hatman]

Being an object, you can choose whether to have it print or not. It worked very well.

I hadn't thought of that: SLICK!

 

[lenze]

Great ideas. I have only used it to place non-contiquous ranges on a blank sheet for printing on one page or, of course, to keep data I am referring to on the area where I am working.

lenze

 

[litrelord]

I've used it a couple of times on spreadsheets for people as it makes it easier for them to copy the picture of a chart into powerpoint. If I don’t do that they copy and paste which imports the worksheet in the background as well leading to unnecessarily large PPT files.

And also use it as a cheap watch window sometimes.

Nick