Today, in Episode #1427, Bill shares an interesting way to find totals in Excel ... the Read Aloud Method! This episode is another in our series for Don't Fear the Spreadsheet. Send in your best Excel Newbie stories! Learn Excel from MrExcel!
Transcript of the video:
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Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1427: the read aloud method.
Well, hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen.
We're going to continue on in our series here.
As I mentioned last week, I’m running a brand new book called Don't Fear The Spreadsheet and this is for people who are completely new to Excel.
I’m looking for the best stories and the first story came in.
Perfect story.
So, if you have a story that can beat this story, send it in to bill@mrexcel.com.
So, I didn't want to use his first name just in case his co-worker recognizes themselves, although they wouldn't be watching this podcast.
Let's just call him K.
K works in IT support and K gets a call and they are, “Hey, I'm a new contractor over here.
Boy, these people really know Excel really well.
Can you come over and just give me a few pointers on VLOOKUP.
They're using VLOOKUP all the time.
I need some help on it.” He came over and realized that the issue really wasn't just VLOOKUP.
He watched her work for a little bit and realized that she had an interesting way for adding up these five numbers.
Anytime she needed to put a total in the spreadsheets, she would select those five cells and then the total would appear down here in the bottom right-hand corner, right?
She would then use this method.
I'm going to demonstrate it for you.
1 1 4 4 2.
1 1 4 4 2.
1 1 4 4 2.
Now, the reason she had to use that method is because when you click away into the total cell, you can't see the number anymore.
So, you have to make sure it's stuck up in your head.
1 1 4 4 2.
I call it the read aloud method.
1 1 4 4 2.
Although K said in watching her, about half the time she would transpose it and end up 1 1 4 2 2.
So, then she would grab a calculator and key everything in to see if the read aloud method worked.
K said, “Hey, I want to show you something.
There's a pretty cool thing here.
You type =SUM, open parentheses and then select the cells that you want to add up and it will put the number right in there.” She says, ”That's amazing!” Although she could never get the formula right, so she went back to her read aloud method instead of that crazy formula thing that K was trying to get her to do.
So, there you go.
I feel bad here, I don't know.
Am I making fun of this woman or am I just making sure that no one else gets caught here?
There's 750 million people using Excel.
They say 40% have never entered a formula, right?
So this is-- these are the kinds of things we run into any time.
I bet you have a better story.
If you've run into a co-worker who's new to Excel and has just come up with something off the wall like the read aloud method, shoot a note here into bill@mrexcel.com and we'll get you a copy, although you don't need it, a copy of the book.
Maybe you can hand it off to the co-worker when it comes.
Hey, I want to thank you for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1427: the read aloud method.
Well, hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen.
We're going to continue on in our series here.
As I mentioned last week, I’m running a brand new book called Don't Fear The Spreadsheet and this is for people who are completely new to Excel.
I’m looking for the best stories and the first story came in.
Perfect story.
So, if you have a story that can beat this story, send it in to bill@mrexcel.com.
So, I didn't want to use his first name just in case his co-worker recognizes themselves, although they wouldn't be watching this podcast.
Let's just call him K.
K works in IT support and K gets a call and they are, “Hey, I'm a new contractor over here.
Boy, these people really know Excel really well.
Can you come over and just give me a few pointers on VLOOKUP.
They're using VLOOKUP all the time.
I need some help on it.” He came over and realized that the issue really wasn't just VLOOKUP.
He watched her work for a little bit and realized that she had an interesting way for adding up these five numbers.
Anytime she needed to put a total in the spreadsheets, she would select those five cells and then the total would appear down here in the bottom right-hand corner, right?
She would then use this method.
I'm going to demonstrate it for you.
1 1 4 4 2.
1 1 4 4 2.
1 1 4 4 2.
Now, the reason she had to use that method is because when you click away into the total cell, you can't see the number anymore.
So, you have to make sure it's stuck up in your head.
1 1 4 4 2.
I call it the read aloud method.
1 1 4 4 2.
Although K said in watching her, about half the time she would transpose it and end up 1 1 4 2 2.
So, then she would grab a calculator and key everything in to see if the read aloud method worked.
K said, “Hey, I want to show you something.
There's a pretty cool thing here.
You type =SUM, open parentheses and then select the cells that you want to add up and it will put the number right in there.” She says, ”That's amazing!” Although she could never get the formula right, so she went back to her read aloud method instead of that crazy formula thing that K was trying to get her to do.
So, there you go.
I feel bad here, I don't know.
Am I making fun of this woman or am I just making sure that no one else gets caught here?
There's 750 million people using Excel.
They say 40% have never entered a formula, right?
So this is-- these are the kinds of things we run into any time.
I bet you have a better story.
If you've run into a co-worker who's new to Excel and has just come up with something off the wall like the read aloud method, shoot a note here into bill@mrexcel.com and we'll get you a copy, although you don't need it, a copy of the book.
Maybe you can hand it off to the co-worker when it comes.
Hey, I want to thank you for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
