Greg Truby
MrExcel MVP
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2002
- Messages
- 10,030
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.)
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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