For the IndieGoGo link: MrExcel XL Book - 40 Greatest Excel Tricks
Two of the least useful functions in Excel - ROMAN and ARABIC. Learn why Steven Spielberg, Beyonce, and Enron accountants might be the only people using ROMAN. Plus, an announcement about how you can appear in my 40th Excel book.
Two of the least useful functions in Excel - ROMAN and ARABIC. Learn why Steven Spielberg, Beyonce, and Enron accountants might be the only people using ROMAN. Plus, an announcement about how you can appear in my 40th Excel book.
Transcript of the video:
The MrExcel podcast is sponsored by Easy-XL.
Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1942.
=ROMAN(), =ARABIC(), IndieGoGo.
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I’m Bill Jelen.
Today, I want to talk about two of the most useless and obscure functions in Excel.
Now, talking about this, the first one, it's always kind of a joke in my Live Power Excel Seminar.
So I start out with this straight tip.
I say: hey, by the way, in case you have bad financial news, for example, let's say your revenues are 3989, and the expense was 3982.
Yeah, that's not a happy income statement, right?
No one wants to give that report to the CFO.
So Excel has a function to handle this.
Just come over to the side and take those numbers and convert them using the =ROMAN function, right?
And people at first think I'm serious, but then they realize, you know, just how ridiculous that is and yeah, you know, it's a great laugh in my Live Excel Seminar.
Roman.
I mean, seriously, who possibly could use the ROMAN function?
There is just, like, hardly any use for Roman numerals anymore.
Well, I guess someone at the NFL could use it to figure out, which Super Bowl is coming next.
You know, we could do that, because of Super Bowl is always in Roman numerals.
Or TV and movie credits, they always show the copyright in Roman numerals, right there, MCMLXVIII.
You know, now, I guess the people who make this card or do the credits could use Excel to figure out the Roman numeral, but hey, there's something new in the Excel 2013.
Thanks to the open document spreadsheet consortium, they actually have a function now, that takes a Roman numeral and converts it back into regular numbers: the =ARABIC function.
And so, this was a 1968 TV show.
But Roman numerals also show up a lot in, you know, famous titles.
And The Godfather Part II was really the first movie that did this.
Before that, you might have, you know, Godzilla, and then Son of Godzilla or Creature from the Black Lagoon and More Creature from the Black Lagoon.
But The Godfather, they were the first ones to use the Roman numeral “II”.
And you find a lot of instances from the 70’s and 80’s: Led Zeppelin II, Van Halen III, Rambo III, Chicago III, Rocky IV, Star Wars Episode V, even Kylie Minogue had her tenth album as “X”, as was Chris Brown.
And then, an Enigma MCMXC, what the heck is that?
Well, that is the year it came out: 1990.
Someone else, who possibly used the Roman function in Excel, would be Jay Z and Beyonce, when they had their baby.
They might have had a little spreadsheet like this, you know, where you choose your favorite color and then type in your favorite number, and it's well documented, Beyonce's favorite number is the number 4.
And so, then, this formula down here (=D3&ROMAN(D5)&”y”) did accurately predict the baby name.
Well, we take D3 and the Roman of D5, adding “y”.
Blue IVy, I mean, hey, look, that works, right?
So maybe… maybe that was chosen using the Roman function.
And so, you know, I think I'm probably the only guy out there teaching Excel, that goes on through this comedy routine of the Roman function.
Now, I've written a lot of different books about Excel.
And if you would take my books and number them with Roman numerals, an amazing thing is about to happen.
I'm about to start working on my 40th book.
And using the Roman function there in column B, the number “40” in Roman numerals is “XL”.
So this is my 40th Excel book and the roman numeral is XL.
I realized this about a year ago and I said: oh, this is an opportunity.
I have to come up with just a simple Excel title, reminiscent of all of these and here's what I came up with: “MrExcel XL”, right?
It's the 40th book.
Like MrExcel, “XL” in Roman “40”.
My 40th book.
Oh, I just cracked me up.
So I've had a vision of this cover with “MrExcel XL” on the cover, but I had no idea what to put in the book.
But here we are, I have to… I have to come up with something for the 40th book, and so it struck me: it's going to be a collection of the 40 greatest Excel tips of all time.
And I want you to help me decide what the 40 greatest are.
I mean, just agreeing on what the 40 greatest tips are, you know, that's going to lead to bar fights if we would ever get together to try and figure this out.
But since this is kind of special for me, my 40th book, and that's my XLth book, XL book, I don't even know if that's a word, I said: I want to make it special, full color, glossy paper and even hire illustrators to do custom illustrations for the various steps.
Now, color books are expensive to print.
You know, with a black and white book, they put one printing plate on the press and start to print.
But with color, you hang four printing plates on the press, so there's a labor to get those hung, and then the paper that's wasted, as they are doing what they call “make ready”, right.
So they start the presses and they check to see if everything is lined up and to get the blue and, you know, magenta, and then the yellow, and the black, all lined up.
And it's just a tremendous amount of work.
That's why you don't see many books in color, unless it's, you know, a fine art book or something like that.
So, in order to pay for that upcharge, I have started an IndieGoGo campaign.
How to raise money for the color?
It turns out, everyone who participates, gets their name in the book.
Which, if you think about it, is a great last minute geeky gift.
If you, well, if you're watching this podcast, you should ask your spouse or girlfriend, or boyfriend, to get you this, because, I mean, how cool would be to have this book autographed by me and have your name in the book?
Okay, so it's really simple: just go in your browser and go to tinyurl.com/mrxlbook40, like that.
And it will redirect you to IndieGoGo.
IndieGoGo is one of the crowdfunding sites, you might have heard of it.
And there are lots of different options out here.
Anything: $4 or more gets you in the book, but for $24 you get an autographed book and there are even more options above that.
So hey, there you go, it's trying to have some fun here with this 40th book, make it an unusual book, a nice keepsake, something to have.
And a chance for you to participate both, in voting on what the 40 best tips are and help pay for that labor on the color print line, and to have your name up here in the book.
And remember, the next time you're trying to confuse your boss, just convert those regular numbers to Roman numerals.
Hey, I want to thank you for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast – MrExcel.
Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1942.
=ROMAN(), =ARABIC(), IndieGoGo.
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I’m Bill Jelen.
Today, I want to talk about two of the most useless and obscure functions in Excel.
Now, talking about this, the first one, it's always kind of a joke in my Live Power Excel Seminar.
So I start out with this straight tip.
I say: hey, by the way, in case you have bad financial news, for example, let's say your revenues are 3989, and the expense was 3982.
Yeah, that's not a happy income statement, right?
No one wants to give that report to the CFO.
So Excel has a function to handle this.
Just come over to the side and take those numbers and convert them using the =ROMAN function, right?
And people at first think I'm serious, but then they realize, you know, just how ridiculous that is and yeah, you know, it's a great laugh in my Live Excel Seminar.
Roman.
I mean, seriously, who possibly could use the ROMAN function?
There is just, like, hardly any use for Roman numerals anymore.
Well, I guess someone at the NFL could use it to figure out, which Super Bowl is coming next.
You know, we could do that, because of Super Bowl is always in Roman numerals.
Or TV and movie credits, they always show the copyright in Roman numerals, right there, MCMLXVIII.
You know, now, I guess the people who make this card or do the credits could use Excel to figure out the Roman numeral, but hey, there's something new in the Excel 2013.
Thanks to the open document spreadsheet consortium, they actually have a function now, that takes a Roman numeral and converts it back into regular numbers: the =ARABIC function.
And so, this was a 1968 TV show.
But Roman numerals also show up a lot in, you know, famous titles.
And The Godfather Part II was really the first movie that did this.
Before that, you might have, you know, Godzilla, and then Son of Godzilla or Creature from the Black Lagoon and More Creature from the Black Lagoon.
But The Godfather, they were the first ones to use the Roman numeral “II”.
And you find a lot of instances from the 70’s and 80’s: Led Zeppelin II, Van Halen III, Rambo III, Chicago III, Rocky IV, Star Wars Episode V, even Kylie Minogue had her tenth album as “X”, as was Chris Brown.
And then, an Enigma MCMXC, what the heck is that?
Well, that is the year it came out: 1990.
Someone else, who possibly used the Roman function in Excel, would be Jay Z and Beyonce, when they had their baby.
They might have had a little spreadsheet like this, you know, where you choose your favorite color and then type in your favorite number, and it's well documented, Beyonce's favorite number is the number 4.
And so, then, this formula down here (=D3&ROMAN(D5)&”y”) did accurately predict the baby name.
Well, we take D3 and the Roman of D5, adding “y”.
Blue IVy, I mean, hey, look, that works, right?
So maybe… maybe that was chosen using the Roman function.
And so, you know, I think I'm probably the only guy out there teaching Excel, that goes on through this comedy routine of the Roman function.
Now, I've written a lot of different books about Excel.
And if you would take my books and number them with Roman numerals, an amazing thing is about to happen.
I'm about to start working on my 40th book.
And using the Roman function there in column B, the number “40” in Roman numerals is “XL”.
So this is my 40th Excel book and the roman numeral is XL.
I realized this about a year ago and I said: oh, this is an opportunity.
I have to come up with just a simple Excel title, reminiscent of all of these and here's what I came up with: “MrExcel XL”, right?
It's the 40th book.
Like MrExcel, “XL” in Roman “40”.
My 40th book.
Oh, I just cracked me up.
So I've had a vision of this cover with “MrExcel XL” on the cover, but I had no idea what to put in the book.
But here we are, I have to… I have to come up with something for the 40th book, and so it struck me: it's going to be a collection of the 40 greatest Excel tips of all time.
And I want you to help me decide what the 40 greatest are.
I mean, just agreeing on what the 40 greatest tips are, you know, that's going to lead to bar fights if we would ever get together to try and figure this out.
But since this is kind of special for me, my 40th book, and that's my XLth book, XL book, I don't even know if that's a word, I said: I want to make it special, full color, glossy paper and even hire illustrators to do custom illustrations for the various steps.
Now, color books are expensive to print.
You know, with a black and white book, they put one printing plate on the press and start to print.
But with color, you hang four printing plates on the press, so there's a labor to get those hung, and then the paper that's wasted, as they are doing what they call “make ready”, right.
So they start the presses and they check to see if everything is lined up and to get the blue and, you know, magenta, and then the yellow, and the black, all lined up.
And it's just a tremendous amount of work.
That's why you don't see many books in color, unless it's, you know, a fine art book or something like that.
So, in order to pay for that upcharge, I have started an IndieGoGo campaign.
How to raise money for the color?
It turns out, everyone who participates, gets their name in the book.
Which, if you think about it, is a great last minute geeky gift.
If you, well, if you're watching this podcast, you should ask your spouse or girlfriend, or boyfriend, to get you this, because, I mean, how cool would be to have this book autographed by me and have your name in the book?
Okay, so it's really simple: just go in your browser and go to tinyurl.com/mrxlbook40, like that.
And it will redirect you to IndieGoGo.
IndieGoGo is one of the crowdfunding sites, you might have heard of it.
And there are lots of different options out here.
Anything: $4 or more gets you in the book, but for $24 you get an autographed book and there are even more options above that.
So hey, there you go, it's trying to have some fun here with this 40th book, make it an unusual book, a nice keepsake, something to have.
And a chance for you to participate both, in voting on what the 40 best tips are and help pay for that labor on the color print line, and to have your name up here in the book.
And remember, the next time you're trying to confuse your boss, just convert those regular numbers to Roman numerals.
Hey, I want to thank you for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast – MrExcel.
