Excel Misery...

[JHizzle]

Dalek Dave wrote:

5 rows and 2000 columns

I don't use excel that often but I do sort out basic database design and that's a fricking scary table. That being said and with me being generous, he could be in the same situation I had a while ago where an extract had a small subset of information we needed from a giant table so in that sort of case, I can understand getting something like that. God I hate that extract. I'd change it if I could but it's an external source.

[Dalek Dave]

Oh I understand that if it is just one huge mother of a spreadsheet it would be maybe 2000 columns, but when it is only five rows you have to wonder.

------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave

[Dan Neely]

Or he could be producing data for an external customer and have no control over what they use. I've got an app that drops >10M value databombs in CSV files. Excel is obviously a poor tool to try and analyze the data with; but it lets me sanity check a few values to make sure what I'm outputting makes sense. CSV is also much more flexible than writing the data in raw binary form or my having to worry about how to import it into End Users Data Bomb Viewer's native format or what happens if they want to use multiple tools that can't read each others files...

3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18

[Uros Calakovic]

Some of my users use printing calculators exclusively - because "it is easier to spot errors that way". They calculate everything twice and if the results are not equal they just put the sheets side by side.

The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.

[Dr Walt Fair PE]

That's not so bad. On one project I asked if they had digital data or whether we'd have to enter it from paper and was told it's all digital. I figured that should be much easier than having to get info off of paper. Once we started the work, they gave me the data: over 2000 individual Excel spreadsheets.:confused: :wtf: X| I think paper would have been better. Since the sheets had small variations in formatting, it took me 3 days to write macros to open the sheets, extract the info and put it into 1 large sheet that I could then manipulate. After that I learned to ask better questions!

CQ de W5ALT

Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software

[Dan Neely]

2000 samples of data from each of five black boxes?

3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18

[theCPkid]

before reading your message, this elv had no idea how to swap row and colums. however, little goggling revealed the method. 1. select your range and click copy. 2. then click on paste special. a special dialog will open. check transpose and click ok. what macro would you use for same? I rarely use excel and my knowledge is limited to few formulas in it. but I know there's lot of programming capabilities in it.

[Dan Mos]

Just record a macro and while doing that and there you go. Sure some optimization can be made but you have it. :)

I bug

[slack7639]

=CONCATENATE(D2,"...",H2,"...",L2,") Types of series that Microsoft Excel can fill in for you You can automatically fill in several types of series by selecting cells and dragging the fill handle - the dot in the bottom right of the highlighted cells.

[englebart]

That is my wife... I have shown her twice how to generate formulas, but she would rather crunch the numbers on her printing calculator. Lucky for her, there are only 8 rows and 1 calculation she wants. She is basically using Excel to format a table.

[Battlehammer]

It must be a women thing because my wife does the same thing.

[Bob work]

Certainly - but do you want to itterate through the columns, doing something to each 4th, or select all of the 4th columns as a group and then do something?

Dim i As Integer
    
    For i = 0 To ActiveSheet.Columns.Count Step 4
        ActiveSheet.Columns(1).Select
        ' do something to each column in succession
        '
        '
    Next i
    
    
    
    ' Or, to grab them all:
    
    Dim strRange As String
    strRange = ""
    
    ' Build the list of column addresses
    For i = 1 To 130 Step 4
        ' Trying to select all of the 4th columns (from 1 to ActiveSheet.Columns.Count)
        ' resulted in an error - might be a limitation in Excel's string length for a list
        ' of range addresses.  I was able to select additional columns manually.
        ' 
        strRange = strRange & ActiveSheet.Columns(i).Address & ","
    Next i
    
    ' Trim the trailing comma from the range address list.
    strRange = Left(strRange, Len(strRange) - 1)
        
    Range(strRange).Select
    
    ' Do something to the columns all at once
    '
    '

-Bob

[W Balboos GHB]

REMINDER ! MS Windows usually comes with an Excel database type driver (also one for text files). Using this, you could have had a small (real) program to get the list of files and open and read them for you. The file list could be ordered by whatever criteria you used as a people. The gathered data could (if so desired) be written to yet another spreadsheet.

/xml>

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein

"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert

"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek dissappointment. If you are searching for perfection in yourself, then you seek failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010