David Hawley - Excel Hacks

Although it's possible to accomplish an enormousamount of work using a relatively simple subset ofExcel's capabilities, the software offers a lot ofpowerful techniques that can leapfrog your work beyond the ordinarywithout requiring that you spend years using and studying Excel.However, most people focus on the content they createdata andformulas, with the occasional chartso moving to these moreadvanced levels of Excel usage looks difficult.

There are lots of ways to take advantage of Excel'scapabilities to greatly extend your ability to create greatspreadsheets, but that don't require years of study.These tools, or hacks quick and dirtysolutions to problems, or clever ways of doing thingswerecreated by Excel users looking for simple solutions to complexissues. The hacks in this book are designed to show youwhat's possible and how to make them workimmediately.

You can benefit from these hacks in two important ways. First, youcan use the hacks directly as you build and improve yourspreadsheets. Second, by studying the hacks and possibly learning alittle Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code, you can customizethe hacks to meet your needs precisely.

To save youthe time and effort of typing scripts and spreadsheets by hand, allthe hacks (except those that are only a few lines long or use onlythe GUI) are available for download from theauthors' web site at http://www.ozgrid.com/BookExamples/excel-hack-examples.htm.

You'll undoubtedly want to cut and paste from theexamples and modify their contents to make them fit your spreadsheetsmore precisely. Excel spreadsheets are tremendously diverse, andyou'll want to change things to make them fit yourwork.

Finally, please note that although all the scripts, tools,procedures, and resources described and contained in this book havebeen tested, the author and the experts who contributed them make noguarantee or warranty that they will work as intended in yournetworking environment. Nor do we assume any liability orresponsibility for any loss or damage arising from their use. Inother words, the information provided in this book is presented on an as is basis, and we strongly recommend that youexperiment with a hack before using it in a production environment.