In an episode guaranteed to hack off many of my friends, Bill and Ann K. Emery discuss some Excel features they don't like, such as:
The Action Pen
Shoot a Photo Of Your Data
Ctrl+T Tables
Conditional Formatting Data Bars with a Gradient.
Check out Ann's blog post on 24 conditional formatting features to avoid: 24 Conditional Formatting Visuals in Microsoft Excel that Should Be Retired | Depict Data Studio
The Action Pen
Shoot a Photo Of Your Data
Ctrl+T Tables
Conditional Formatting Data Bars with a Gradient.
Check out Ann's blog post on 24 conditional formatting features to avoid: 24 Conditional Formatting Visuals in Microsoft Excel that Should Be Retired | Depict Data Studio
Transcript of the video:
Learn Excel from MrExcel Podcast Episode 2408: which Excel features do you avoid?
Hey, this is more of my conversation with Ann K. Emery.
Check out her blog it depictdatastudio.com/blog.
Well, there's no better way than to get thousands of dislikes on a video.
Then to talk about the things that I don't like.
Because even if I don't like it, there's some large number of people out there that use these features all the time.
And if it's a feature that used by 1% of the Excel people, that's a stadium full of people who are going to be hacked off.
But Ann asked me about the features that I'm not a fan of.
So we're going to talk about the action pen, take a photo of a receipt, and convert it to almost data.
And the big one that's going to I know. irritate everyone that I know: Ctrl+T tables.
Plus, Ann talks about data bars with gradients.
Let's get started.
Bill.
What are some Excel features that you feel like aren't worth the hype?
Maybe they take people a long time to learn.
You know, there's a big learning curve, but maybe not as much payoff.
Anything we should just not bother learning about and we can ignore and not feel bad.
There are ones you don't already know.
Which is good.
There's something called the Action Pen.
The Action Pen is brand new and it lets you draw your data.
So I can use a mouse or a pencil on an iPad and draw 123 and it will convert it to 123.
Which is the weirdest thing.
Why did they waste any any engineering cycles on letting me draw numbers when I have a keyboard?
Yeah, so the action pen.
I’m just not a fan of the Action Pen.
It's one of the silliest things I've seen In Excel.
Have you used the … I think this is only on the Excel app, like the phone app, but you take a picture of a piece of paper and it converts the table.
Does that work?
It doesn't work at all.
And here's here's the problem.
Here's the problem.
See this piece of paper.
This piece of paper is perfect because it's never been folded.
But the receipts that I get.
Everything does this.
And once you fold that piece of paper, it never lays flat again.
And now the problem that we have is the top half of this.
The words are going that way in the bottom half, the words are going that way.
If you fold the paper it will not work.
It's the worst thing.
The stuff that they give you as a result of that.
If you try and edit it, you should just.
You should just start over from a blank sheet and type.
I would even rather use the action pen rather than that.
Take a picture of the thing because it's just terrible And having having 20% of the numbers wrong, that doesn't help me at all.
I just become super nervous about the data.
So yeah, not a fan.
So as a broke college student, I didn't want to pay for photocopying at my University library.
I was doing a research project on something where I was looking at all these books.
I think they were too heavy to check out, so I brought my camera, which is like this big at the time.
This was before smartphones and I remember taking pictures of data tables in books in the University library and then later like looking at the numbers of tables.
So when Excel came out with that thing like just take a picture, scan your table and it it fills into a spreadsheet.
I was like, “I lost a whole weekend of my life typing in numbers”, but I'm actually really relieved that you're saying it doesn't really work very good.
And these are books that we open them, they're not flat.
They have that kind of curve in the middle anyway.
So my time wasn't totally wasted.
It is funny, I have a scanner over there that deals with that curve.
It it's all about the curve.
Someone that I ran into a seminar, gave me 120 copies of Lotus magazine, which was a thing back in the 80s.
And I started scanning all of those issues of Lotus magazine.
But then.
I got like 6 issues in and then stopped.
I have no idea what that story has to do with anything.
You don't still have those magazines sitting around?
Yes, they are right there.
And it's wild to look at what was amazing in 1986.
What new feature just come along that they were like (gasp).
Type in January and grab the fill handle and have it fill February and March that was brand new.
And there was someone who was who was selling a foot mouse.
Right, so that way you could you could use your hands to type, but then your foot to click, right?
Like that was a big thing.
They advertised in 6 issues in a row or something like that.
And they still sell it like you can still buy a foot mouse if you need to be able to work faster, I guess.
I have no idea.
It's crazy.
I'm not that coordinated.
I'm picturing like a drummer at a drum set whose looks like this at the same time with the little foot pedal.
Yeah, exactly that’s right.
I can’t do that.
And now that formula has to get copied down and I don't use tables.
I don't you press Control+T ever.
Tell me more about tables because I don't use tables either.
I was never taught to use them.
Good!
High Five!
By the time I realized what Excel tables were, I feel like it was almost too late for me to start using them, but then as I tried to figure out their ins and outs, I wasn’t so wowed by them.
Tell me more about this.
Yeah, so I hate tables because it turns off several features.
Deep features, but features that I use all the time.
You can't do Subtotals.
On the data tab, there's a subtotal command on the far right hand side.
I love Subtotals.
When I used to work using Excel 40 hours a week, I would use subtotals every single day.
They were one of my core go-to features.
You know when I didn't need a pivot table.
Subtotals would do it, and those don't work with tables.
So that irritates me.
Custom Views is a feature that is great for hiding and unhiding sheets.
And today, I get it, we can unhide all the sheets at once but it used to be that you can only unhide one sheet so I would use Custom Views for that.
Those don't work with tables.
And I'm still annoyed that when I want to copy 2 sheets from this workbook to another workbook.
You can't do it if there's a table on both sheets.
What is the Excel team's problem?
So for me I just reject tables.
And I've run into a lot of people now who are giving me a lot of heat over that.
They are like, “What do you mean you don't use tables, tables with the greatest thing ever!” Not for me.
Sorry.
So.
Does anybody else here want to share one of your favourites like a favorite go-to Excel technique.
I'm going to say mine are pivot tables vlookups.
And I love my conditional formatting.
I think I joke in this course.
Click on Ann's favorite button of all time, conditional formatting.
I am a visual person of course.
So I love my my data bars and my heat Maps.
So yeah, that's good.
Do you have any problem?
So when data bars first came out, there were a bunch of visualization people who were very antagonistic about data bars.
Like at zero, they actually show a little bit of color at zero and that the gradient was irritating people.
I'm like, no, these are cool, right?
What are you upset about?
This is a great feature, but so what's your opinion?
Do you have any problems with that?
I have a blog post called 24 Conditional Formatting Features That Should Be Retired From Excel.
I love the solid fill ones.
I use the solid filled data bars all the time.
I'm not a fan of the gradients because if you're supposed to compare the lengths of the bars but they fizzle out towards the end, how do you see it?
So no, but I use them all the time and I hopefully people in this course of got into those lessons so far.
Use them in dashboards, right?
I think I use them every single day, so those are a good one.
If people haven't discovered them yet.
Hey, this is more of my conversation with Ann K. Emery.
Check out her blog it depictdatastudio.com/blog.
Well, there's no better way than to get thousands of dislikes on a video.
Then to talk about the things that I don't like.
Because even if I don't like it, there's some large number of people out there that use these features all the time.
And if it's a feature that used by 1% of the Excel people, that's a stadium full of people who are going to be hacked off.
But Ann asked me about the features that I'm not a fan of.
So we're going to talk about the action pen, take a photo of a receipt, and convert it to almost data.
And the big one that's going to I know. irritate everyone that I know: Ctrl+T tables.
Plus, Ann talks about data bars with gradients.
Let's get started.
Bill.
What are some Excel features that you feel like aren't worth the hype?
Maybe they take people a long time to learn.
You know, there's a big learning curve, but maybe not as much payoff.
Anything we should just not bother learning about and we can ignore and not feel bad.
There are ones you don't already know.
Which is good.
There's something called the Action Pen.
The Action Pen is brand new and it lets you draw your data.
So I can use a mouse or a pencil on an iPad and draw 123 and it will convert it to 123.
Which is the weirdest thing.
Why did they waste any any engineering cycles on letting me draw numbers when I have a keyboard?
Yeah, so the action pen.
I’m just not a fan of the Action Pen.
It's one of the silliest things I've seen In Excel.
Have you used the … I think this is only on the Excel app, like the phone app, but you take a picture of a piece of paper and it converts the table.
Does that work?
It doesn't work at all.
And here's here's the problem.
Here's the problem.
See this piece of paper.
This piece of paper is perfect because it's never been folded.
But the receipts that I get.
Everything does this.
And once you fold that piece of paper, it never lays flat again.
And now the problem that we have is the top half of this.
The words are going that way in the bottom half, the words are going that way.
If you fold the paper it will not work.
It's the worst thing.
The stuff that they give you as a result of that.
If you try and edit it, you should just.
You should just start over from a blank sheet and type.
I would even rather use the action pen rather than that.
Take a picture of the thing because it's just terrible And having having 20% of the numbers wrong, that doesn't help me at all.
I just become super nervous about the data.
So yeah, not a fan.
So as a broke college student, I didn't want to pay for photocopying at my University library.
I was doing a research project on something where I was looking at all these books.
I think they were too heavy to check out, so I brought my camera, which is like this big at the time.
This was before smartphones and I remember taking pictures of data tables in books in the University library and then later like looking at the numbers of tables.
So when Excel came out with that thing like just take a picture, scan your table and it it fills into a spreadsheet.
I was like, “I lost a whole weekend of my life typing in numbers”, but I'm actually really relieved that you're saying it doesn't really work very good.
And these are books that we open them, they're not flat.
They have that kind of curve in the middle anyway.
So my time wasn't totally wasted.
It is funny, I have a scanner over there that deals with that curve.
It it's all about the curve.
Someone that I ran into a seminar, gave me 120 copies of Lotus magazine, which was a thing back in the 80s.
And I started scanning all of those issues of Lotus magazine.
But then.
I got like 6 issues in and then stopped.
I have no idea what that story has to do with anything.
You don't still have those magazines sitting around?
Yes, they are right there.
And it's wild to look at what was amazing in 1986.
What new feature just come along that they were like (gasp).
Type in January and grab the fill handle and have it fill February and March that was brand new.
And there was someone who was who was selling a foot mouse.
Right, so that way you could you could use your hands to type, but then your foot to click, right?
Like that was a big thing.
They advertised in 6 issues in a row or something like that.
And they still sell it like you can still buy a foot mouse if you need to be able to work faster, I guess.
I have no idea.
It's crazy.
I'm not that coordinated.
I'm picturing like a drummer at a drum set whose looks like this at the same time with the little foot pedal.
Yeah, exactly that’s right.
I can’t do that.
And now that formula has to get copied down and I don't use tables.
I don't you press Control+T ever.
Tell me more about tables because I don't use tables either.
I was never taught to use them.
Good!
High Five!
By the time I realized what Excel tables were, I feel like it was almost too late for me to start using them, but then as I tried to figure out their ins and outs, I wasn’t so wowed by them.
Tell me more about this.
Yeah, so I hate tables because it turns off several features.
Deep features, but features that I use all the time.
You can't do Subtotals.
On the data tab, there's a subtotal command on the far right hand side.
I love Subtotals.
When I used to work using Excel 40 hours a week, I would use subtotals every single day.
They were one of my core go-to features.
You know when I didn't need a pivot table.
Subtotals would do it, and those don't work with tables.
So that irritates me.
Custom Views is a feature that is great for hiding and unhiding sheets.
And today, I get it, we can unhide all the sheets at once but it used to be that you can only unhide one sheet so I would use Custom Views for that.
Those don't work with tables.
And I'm still annoyed that when I want to copy 2 sheets from this workbook to another workbook.
You can't do it if there's a table on both sheets.
What is the Excel team's problem?
So for me I just reject tables.
And I've run into a lot of people now who are giving me a lot of heat over that.
They are like, “What do you mean you don't use tables, tables with the greatest thing ever!” Not for me.
Sorry.
So.
Does anybody else here want to share one of your favourites like a favorite go-to Excel technique.
I'm going to say mine are pivot tables vlookups.
And I love my conditional formatting.
I think I joke in this course.
Click on Ann's favorite button of all time, conditional formatting.
I am a visual person of course.
So I love my my data bars and my heat Maps.
So yeah, that's good.
Do you have any problem?
So when data bars first came out, there were a bunch of visualization people who were very antagonistic about data bars.
Like at zero, they actually show a little bit of color at zero and that the gradient was irritating people.
I'm like, no, these are cool, right?
What are you upset about?
This is a great feature, but so what's your opinion?
Do you have any problems with that?
I have a blog post called 24 Conditional Formatting Features That Should Be Retired From Excel.
I love the solid fill ones.
I use the solid filled data bars all the time.
I'm not a fan of the gradients because if you're supposed to compare the lengths of the bars but they fizzle out towards the end, how do you see it?
So no, but I use them all the time and I hopefully people in this course of got into those lessons so far.
Use them in dashboards, right?
I think I use them every single day, so those are a good one.
If people haven't discovered them yet.
