Top Excel Help Posts in 2013 and 2014 Goals

2013 is coming to a close so it’s that time of year to sit back and reflect about what transpired this past year and what is to come. I’m going to share my most popular Excel tips from the past year, my most popular Excel templates, and finally share what my goals and vision for next year is.

Top 5 Excel Tips from 2013

 

Listed below are the five most popular Excel tips I published on the Excel Help blog throughout 2013:

 

1. How to combine Excel files with a VBA macro
2. How to filter Data in Excel
3. How to create collapsible rows in Excel
4. How to embed Excel in a website
5. Excel pranks and practical jokes

 

Top 5 Excel Templates from 2013

 

Listed below are the top 5 most popular free Excel templates and spreadsheets I created and made available to download in 2013:

 

1. Printable Super Bowl Squares
2. Website Creation Checklist
3. Newborn Checklist for New Parents
4. Apartment Comparison Spreadsheet LITE version
5. NFL Helmet Schedule

 

Goals for 2014

I recently took a poll of my loyal followers by asking them what they would rather see more of on the blog: spreadsheet templates or tips/tricks/macros to improve spreadsheet creation efficiency? My most recent posts have primarily been spreadsheet templates I’ve made available to download for free, such as my newborn feeding schedule, college bowl prediction pool, etc. Something I’ve gotten away from lately is posting tips and macros to improve your Excel efficiency, like my earlier posts on how to create folders automatically, how to create hatching in Excel, etc.

The majority of my reader’s responses asked for more tips, tricks, and macros to improve Excel efficiency. I will still be creating and posting templates as I have been because I think a lot of people find them to be quite useful and you may pick up a few tips just by looking at them and examining the formulas I use. However, I promise to make a strong effort to post more tips and macros, especially for my email subscribers. In fact, I already have several rough drafts already written and am working on some new video tutorials. What would you like to see more of in 2014? Anything specific?

Have a great holiday season, thanks for your continued support, and see you in 2014!!!

Visit me at Excel Spreadsheets Help and leave a comment. Would love to see you there!

Newborn Checklist for New Parents

Sorry for the lack of posts recently (besides sports spreadsheets) but the reason is because I’ve been getting ready for something big, something exciting, something life-altering: my wife and I are expecting our first child next month! We’re super stoked to be having a son but anxious at the same time. We’ve been working hard at getting everything ready but I can’t help thinking, “what if we’ve forgotten something important?” There have been so many things to do and there are so many things yet to do. How does a new parent keep it all organized? My solution is to use an Excel spreadsheet of course!

 

 

In order to keep myself organized and to help other future parents I’ve put together what I hope is the ultimate newborn checklist in Excel. This master file is composed of four separate sheets (I imagine I'll probably add more in the future too):

Things to do BEFORE the Baby is Born

The first sheet is a getting ready for baby checklist. It includes a list of things you should do before your baby is born and how soon before the due date they should be completed by.

Baby Registry Checklist

The next sheet in the file is the baby registry checklist. You can use this for a baby shower checklist or for a list of things you need before the baby arrives.

Hospital Bag Checklist

A list of what to pack for the hospital that you can easily print off if you would like.

 

Things to Do After the Baby is Born checklist

Another checklist of things that need to be done after the baby is born.

Behind the scenes so to speak, the newborn checklist spreadsheet uses named ranges, data validation to create lists, conditional formatting to color cells based on text, IF formulas, concatenate formulas, data filtering, and more. You’re free to poke around the spreadsheet if you want to see how it works or you don’t have to deal with any of that if you don’t want to and simply fill in the information or print it off.

My goal is to make this the ultimate resource for new parents. I’ve tried to include everything such as what to pack in hospital bag for mom. Tasks can be assigned to husband or wife. I also included some links to some services that can help you save money, like Amazon Mom. Believe me guys, your wives will be very impressed and happy if you use this list and actually help her prepare (yay brownies points). Download the spreadsheet for free using the link below.

Newborn checklist.xls download

Please let me know in the comments if you enjoy this newborn checklist and if you would like to see more parenting Excel templates like it.

Visit me at Excel Spreadsheets Help and leave a comment. Would love to see you there!

My Excel 2016 Wishlist

Today, I started thinking about my Excel 2016 wishlist. Microsoft Excel has been updated every three years beginning in 2007. Knowing this, we can only assume the next edition of Excel will come out in three years from now in 2016. The latest update, Excel 2013, includes new tools like FlashFill, PowerView, Timeline Slicer, and over 50 new functions. Don’t get me wrong, Excel is a very powerful tool but it’s not completely perfect yet.

Thus, it’s never too early to start thinking about the next edition of Excel and what improvements can be made. There are a number of features that I think would make creating spreadsheets even easier. A couple of simple improvements could help save users even more time. Here are some of the things I’d like to see in Excel 2016:

• A FIXTODAY() function that holds the date of the day the formula was first created or entered into the spreadsheet.
• I don’t know if this will ever be possible outside of Google Docs but allowing multiple users to edit the same document at the same time would be wonderful.This would eliminate all those extra copies of spreadsheets floating around.  This option is already available!
• I don’t know why you can’t do this already but it would be great to be able to unhide multiple worksheets at the same time. Currently, you can only unhide one sheet at a time which can be a major headache and quite inconvenient.
• Along this same line, I would like the ability to unprotect multiple sheets at once. Something like a global password may be the solution.
• An easy way to be able to see exact revision history.
• More options when protecting a sheet, like being able to use CustomViews.
• More text manipulation functions and options.

That’s what I think. What about you? What would you like to see in future versions of Excel? What’s on your Excel 2016 wishlist? Please let me know in the comments below. Who knows, maybe Microsoft will even be taking notes!

Visit me at Excel Spreadsheets Help and leave a comment. Would love to see you there!