DJL Training, Inc - Blog by DeLisa Lee

Books Used in Class

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 12:07:57 -0500

Want to know which books we use in class? Our course catalog provides a link to the book used in each course.

Select the desired course

Select the Technical Info tab

Click the book link under Training Manual

DeLisa's Favorite Excel Resources

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 23:14:11 -0500

Ever wonder where Excel experts go for help or which Excel sites they bookmark? In this post, DeLisa shares her favorite Excel websites, user forums, add-ins, and more! Feel free to share your favorites in the comments.

MrExcel.com	At this site, you can access a community of thousands of Excel users who are more than happy to help you with your Excel challenges -- for free! (You can ask Access questions here too!) Click Message Board on the left. Create an account and post your questions to the message board. DeLisa has been a member of the site since 2004. To follow her posts, search for user djl0525.
GCFLearnFree.org	Free tutorials, text and video, on a range of Microsoft Excel topics.
Microsoft Office Excel Blog	Get the latest news on Microsoft Excel updates and features!
Peltier Tech Blog	Want to take your Excel charts to the next level? Check out Jon Peltier's website. Jon is an Excel guru who specializes in Excel charts.
ASAP Utilities	ASAP Utilities is one of the most popular add-ins for Microsoft Excel. An add-in is a small, yet powerful, program that fills the gaps in an application. ASAP Utilities has been around since 1999. Look at the Features page to see a description of all of the tools in ASAP Utilities.
Commonly Used Excel Formulas	This page at Microsoft.com contains links to articles and videos that show you how to create formulas from the data in your worksheet. The examples in the articles contain sample data to get you started and guidance to help you get the results you expect.
Overview of Formulas	Want a better understanding of Excel formulas? Check out this overview page at Microsoft.com.
Excel Functions (alphabetically)	Did you know there are 460 functions in the latest versions of Excel? Browse them alphabetically at Microsoft.com.
Excel Functions (by category)	Browse Excel functions by category at Microsoft.com.

Copying data from USAJOBS

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 01:15:15 -0500

Copying data from a webpage into Excel can often be a messy and laborious task. This was the case for one of my customers who prints data from a job search results on a daily basis. In this 3-part video series, I show my customer how to streamline their process when they do it manually, and the benefits of automating the process by creating a macro. There is no sound on the videos.

Copy Data from Website to Excel

In this video, I will manually copy more than a dozen pages of job data from the USAJOBS site to an Excel spreadsheet. This will result in nearly 1,200 rows of data. Unfortunately, the website does not provide a download or print button to help the process.

Manually Format the Data in Excel

Once the data has been downloaded, it must be formatted and rearranged. Depending on which team member performs the daily task (they take turns), the process can take 1-2 hours. I created this 6 minute video to provide each team member with the optimal steps to complete the process in minimal time. My hope is that if they follow these steps, they can the data ready to print in 20-30 minutes instead of 2 hours.

Using a Macro

I recorded this video to show the customer that using a macro, their entire formatting and rearranging process can be completed in seconds, not hours.

Excel 2013 Flash Fill

Sat, 11 Apr 2015 19:51:41 -0500

Check out this great new time-saving feature in Excel 2013. Flash Fill will follow a pattern to insert, extract, format and concatenate data for you. It works with text, numbers, dates and much more! No formulas required!

Convert your Excel formulas to values

Sat, 11 Apr 2015 19:51:22 -0500

Did you know you can replaces a formula with the value of the formula?

Select a cell(s) containing a formula
Copy
Select your destination cell(s)
Paste > Paste Special > Values
Click OK

Import Excel Contacts into Gmail

Sat, 22 Feb 2014 00:06:51 -0500

To import contacts from a CSV file

Open your Excel spreadsheet.

Make sure your column headings are in row 1 and your first contact is in row 2.

The Name field can be a single column, or you can use separate columns for first name, middle name and last name.

There must be a column for email address.

If you have a Notes column, it will be imported into the Contact's Notes field.

Save As... CSV (comma separated value)

Excel may warn you that your file contains features not supported by CSV format. Click OK.

Note the location of your saved file.

Open your Google contacts in Gmail.

Click the More button above the contact list and select Import.

Click the Choose File button and navigate to your .CSV file.

Click Import. Gmail will display the number of contacts to be imported.

You're done! Click My Contacts to view your Contacts.

Additional Notes

The import process supports a Notes field. However, the maximum size for a contact is 128 KB. So if a contact exceeds this size, the Notes field might be truncated.

You can upload up to 3,000 contacts at a time. If you have more than 3,000 contacts to upload, you'll need to create more than one CSV file to upload.

Still Not Working?

Here's a tip from our Senior Technical Trainer.

She writes: "When I need to import data into a program, the first thing I do is export a record from the destination app. I figure, surely the app can import it's own file. Right? After I export a record, I do not rearrange, delete or rename any columns. I simply use that file as a template for my import."

So try these steps if all else fails...

Open a contact in Google Contacts and complete all the fields you care about or create a new one and fill it with dummy data
Export that contact to a csv or Excel file
Open the exported file and use it as a template for importing your data.

In other words, copy your data into a file Google creates when you export a contact.