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Spreadsheets

Do you use spreadsheets? Yes, every day - both for professional and personal use!
What is your go-to spreadsheet program? Excel
Do you have any really complex ones? Yes
Any spreadsheet tips or tricks? If you need quick help with a formula, ChatGPT is an excellent resource! It can also be used to aid in analyzing the data.
 
I don't use them anymore.

My first spreadsheet program was one called SuperCalc that ran on a Heathkit computer my dad built. You had to load the program from a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk. (Sometime in the 80's)

I was pretty proficient in Lotus 1-2-3 back in the day, and in the early days of Excel. It seemed like the more they tried to make it friendlier, the harder it got for me to do anything "sophisticated", but I did use it at work for some basic stuff. And it seemed like there was a spreadsheet for everything. I guess now that I'm retired I don't really spend much time tracking stuff.
 
I remember Lotus 123! I have never really used spreadsheets much except when I was the HS band booster treasurer. I see a lot of them at work (Excel) but fortunately, I don't really have to make them. I can make spreadsheets if I absolutely have to but I end up looking everything up as I go along.
 
Do you use spreadsheets? Yes!

What is your go-to spreadsheet program? Currently use Libre Office. I learned on Lotus, then switched to Excel when I worked.

Do you have any really complex ones? In my former life, I was quite good at V-Lookups. Now, I doubt I would even remember how to set one up.

For home use, nothing really elaborate. Currently, I use a spreadsheet for creative team responsibilities, a separate tab for each designer. DH had his vinyl record inventory on one (4000 albums) that I set up for him. I use one for tracking expenses. If I have to use a calculator on something, I'll generally set up a spreadsheet. It is quick and more accurate than I would be.

Any spreadsheet tips or tricks? Sorry, Jan...
 
amien1 said:
Do you use spreadsheets?
Not at work, but yes at home- I do a monthly budget spreadsheet that we live/die by!

What is your go-to spreadsheet program?
Microsoft excel, although I have used google sheets when shared with me for team signups & stuff.

Do you have any really complex ones?
My monthly budget spreadsheet has evolved to be pretty complex for sure! It has some crazy formulas (if this then over budget/under budget; adds up expenses, shows extra $, etc etc.)

Any spreadsheet tips or tricks?
My husband is an excel guru- so he's my go-to for formulas & stuff so I guess my tip is to ask him! lol!
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Haha *note to self* Call Amie's hubby for excel advice :giggle
 
nollipap said:
I have started using Libre office, which is totally free and is exactly the same as all the microsoft apps like word,excel, etc.. I haven't yet started using google forms.
The Libre office spreadsheet comes with tips each time you open up the app, which you can turn off if you want. It is useful in case you have forgotten to do something when you haven't used a function for a while.
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I will have to check out Libre office! Thanks!
 
scribler said:
Do you use spreadsheets? Occassionally. I used use them more often.
What is your go-to spreadsheet program? Now it's Excel. For awhile it was Google Sheets.
Do you have any really complex ones? No. I've never been that good with Excel. Now, back in the day, my mom was an Excel rockstar. Even taught classes for Chevron. So, if I needed anything complex, I just went to her.
Any spreadsheet tips or tricks? No.
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How cool that your mom taught those classes for Chevron!
 
AChromeCookie said:
Spreadsheets are clutch. I bounce between Excel and Google Sheets depending on the vibe, Excel when I need heavy lifting, Google Sheets for quick and dirty collaboration. My most ridiculous spreadsheet? A gaming backlog tracker that got so detailed it had release dates, review scores, and even hours-to-beat columns. Obsessed much?

Oh, and random tip, use CONCAT or TEXTJOIN for combining data from different cells. Makes things way cleaner
Click to expand...
Ooh thanks for the tip! That gaming backlog tracker sounds insane!
 
CathQuillScrap said:
Do you use spreadsheets? Everyday both at work and at home
What is your go-to spreadsheet program? at work we use Excel as part of Microsoft 365. At home I use OpenOffice which can open and save excel files...most of the functions are exactly the same but it's free!
Do you have any really complex ones? At work I have huge reports that have to be done in excel and formulas within formulas. They can get complex but at least the formulas are standard and can just be adapted for whatever function I need. I am sort of the Excel expert at work and most people will ask me to help them out... comes from years of working with it.
Any spreadsheet tips or tricks? Not particularly... just work smarter not harder!

My spreadsheets I use for my scrapping as varied too...
I have one to track my monthly commitments and challenges,
one that I update with all my layouts created by date, album, ct and store... that takes the most brainpower I guess.
And then I have one that tracks the kits I have bought/downloaded ... this is to help me keep track so I don't buy duplicates... usually works pretty well, except when I miss something! Also helps me keep track of how much I've spent in dollars vs rands.
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Work smarter not harder!! Such a great tip!!
 
dawnmarch said:
I remember Lotus 123! I have never really used spreadsheets much except when I was the HS band booster treasurer. I see a lot of them at work (Excel) but fortunately, I don't really have to make them. I can make spreadsheets if I absolutely have to but I end up looking everything up as I go along.
Click to expand...
This is me most of the time. I will look up stuff as I go :)
 
SeattleSheri said:
Do you use spreadsheets? Yes, every day - both for professional and personal use!
What is your go-to spreadsheet program? Excel
Do you have any really complex ones? Yes
Any spreadsheet tips or tricks? If you need quick help with a formula, ChatGPT is an excellent resource! It can also be used to aid in analyzing the data.
Click to expand...
Ooooh Thanks for the tip on ChatGPT! I've used it on logs of stuff, but hadn't thought of that!
 
i can appreciate a good formula in excel and the timesaving that produces! my gripe is they don't teach that in school anymore, it's just expected to be known here now, neither of my kids know how to use excel/sheets properly for data but at some point in highschool it was assumed they could use it for more complex stats and stuff

Anyway, i used excel mainly, and more recently sheets, for trip planning - i don't know that it's hugely complex but the current one has multiple various colour coded tabs for price/time comparisons for flights and hotels with pros and cons etc as well as sightseeing/itinerary lists (in various colour-coded tabs so it's all together) with important info like 'closed mondays' or 'need to book in advance' (so glad for the text wrapping option in each cell!) to then organise into a loose calendar-style itinerary in another tab.
It might be considered complex in that it has a lot of info contained in the one sheet but doesn't really use formulas but in theory can help me figure out total cost.
I like it though because it means everyone (the rest of the fam) can add in their sightseeing ideas if they read or hear about some must-do thing and a web link to find out the important info about it (rather than them saying to me i saw an influencer talk about xyz and i have no idea or leads on it other than that), then we can sort them by location to minimise backtracking etc - yeah, i'm super fun to holiday with (i'm way more TeamSpreadsheet than Team Spontaneous when it comes to travel but for the most part it works to know what the plan is or at least the direction to start wandering in and knowing a more central area ahead of time to book to stay in). So when kits all say 'the journey is the destination' or 'wandering isn't lost' or 'free spirit' etc, I can't relate to that so much and to me, 'go see do' really needs the word 'plan' in brackets before it!
 
Oh wow! goodness Lotus 1-2-3 haven't read that in years!!! lol!! I used to be an IT Trainer back in the day and the first job was training unemployed people on how to use Lotus Notes spreadsheets and also the Wordperfect word processing progam (I loved that program) between 1986 - 1991)! Then it progressed to Excel spreadsheets as well as the Office programs like Word and Access (Databases).

When that community services company closed down I went to a power utility company where I trained the staff Lotus Notes email for around 3 years prior to the company migrating over to the Office Suite of programs like Excel, Word, Access, Powerpoint, Publisher and Outlook (still thought the Lotus Notes email program was the best though!). I loved that job as it involved a lot travel as we had close to 4000 employees spread out across the state of New South Wales.

Like you Jan I use Google docs and spreadsheet now and I use spreadsheets for everything! lol! I even use one to organise my GSO stuff! lol! These days they are fairly simple and the google s/sheets aren't as powerful as the Excel spreadsheets in which I used to train to an advanced level but can't remember a lot of that now! lol!

The good ol' days for sure!! :)
 
@wombat146 I work in the gas industry.

Have spent ages today figuring out how to set up a formula to calculate days for actions due (or overdue) and within that put them into groups like 3-6 months overdue, 1-3 months overdue, due today, etc. Took me ages to get right. It was the negative (overdue) numbers that were giving me a headache. Got there eventually though. Then I've set up pivot tables and associated charts. I do love Excel but I was having huge brain fog with this.

Oh a tip for me is to make use of the find and replace options. Most of the data that I export comes with the email addresses included in the same field as the name and it takes up so much space in the tables and charts. I do find and replace to get rid of the email address and only leave the name, using the 'wildcard' *.
 
wombat146 said:
Oh wow! goodness Lotus 1-2-3 haven't read that in years!!! lol!! I used to be an IT Trainer back in the day and the first job was training unemployed people on how to use Lotus Notes spreadsheets and also the Wordperfect word processing progam (I loved that program) between 1986 - 1991)! Then it progressed to Excel spreadsheets as well as the Office programs like Word and Access (Databases).

When that community services company closed down I went to a power utility company where I trained the staff Lotus Notes email for around 3 years prior to the company migrating over to the Office Suite of programs like Excel, Word, Access, Powerpoint, Publisher and Outlook (still thought the Lotus Notes email program was the best though!). I loved that job as it involved a lot travel as we had close to 4000 employees spread out across the state of New South Wales.

Like you Jan I use Google docs and spreadsheet now and I use spreadsheets for everything! lol! I even use one to organise my GSO stuff! lol! These days they are fairly simple and the google s/sheets aren't as powerful as the Excel spreadsheets in which I used to train to an advanced level but can't remember a lot of that now! lol!

The good ol' days for sure!! :)
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I have a GSO spreadsheet to track all of y'all...not like your postings but just email addresses, day preferences, and to have a running list of bloggers :)
Y'all are all inspiring me to really buckle down and learn to maximize my use of spreadsheets lol
 
fruitysuet said:
@wombat146 I work in the gas industry.

Have spent ages today figuring out how to set up a formula to calculate days for actions due (or overdue) and within that put them into groups like 3-6 months overdue, 1-3 months overdue, due today, etc. Took me ages to get right. It was the negative (overdue) numbers that were giving me a headache. Got there eventually though. Then I've set up pivot tables and associated charts. I do love Excel but I was having huge brain fog with this.

Oh a tip for me is to make use of the find and replace options. Most of the data that I export comes with the email addresses included in the same field as the name and it takes up so much space in the tables and charts. I do find and replace to get rid of the email address and only leave the name, using the 'wildcard' *.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the great tip!!!
 
I have had the same budget spreadsheet since I was married, it was converted to Google Sheets a long time ago, just keep adding paydays to it each year and additional rows for new categories of spending. I hide the rows I don't use anymore...it would be funny to unhide them and see what I used to spend money on. It's not very complicated, though. I used a pivot table once at work for something, but I can't even remember what that was for. Mostly use them for non-number data tracking at work...lists for projects.
 
AChromeCookie said:
Spreadsheets are clutch. I bounce between Excel and Google Sheets depending on the vibe, Excel when I need heavy lifting, Google Sheets for quick and dirty collaboration. My most ridiculous spreadsheet? A gaming backlog tracker that got so detailed it had release dates, review scores, and even hours-to-beat columns. Obsessed much?

Oh, and random tip, use CONCAT or TEXTJOIN for combining data from different cells. Makes things way cleaner
Click to expand...

LOL! I becha I can match that for ridiculous -- I have 1000s of daffodils I own on a spreadsheet - the name, color code, division, breeder, fertility, time of bloom, height, country of origin, diameter in mm, place/person where I acquired it, date, father, mother, number and size of bulbs planted (and the year), where they are planted in my garden, usually a bed by name, plus special classes in a daffodil show they are eligible for. When it is time for daffodil shows, I can sort by week of bloom to see what I *should* have. Then, same as you and Google Sheets and collaboration. All the bulbs I dig in any given year can be scooped up (since the can be sorted by location) and the names shared with anybody who might want a few bubs to show themselves - or to trade.
 
Lime said:
LOL! I becha I can match that for ridiculous -- I have 1000s of daffodils I own on a spreadsheet - the name, color code, division, breeder, fertility, time of bloom, height, country of origin, diameter in mm, place/person where I acquired it, date, father, mother, number and size of bulbs planted (and the year), where they are planted in my garden, usually a bed by name, plus special classes in a daffodil show they are eligible for. When it is time for daffodil shows, I can sort by week of bloom to see what I *should* have. Then, same as you and Google Sheets and collaboration. All the bulbs I dig in any given year can be scooped up (since the can be sorted by location) and the names shared with anybody who might want a few bubs to show themselves - or to trade.
Click to expand...

:yourock
 
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