I have a list of people who registered for certain events and when they withdrew from that event. I have their names, the events the registered for, the indicator they registered/withdrew, and the date those registrations/withdrawals happened.

Registrants have an account code. Registrations are noted by the codes RE and RN and Withdrawals are noted by the codes WX and WC. Each instances of these codes happens on a different line.

So, for example, I have the following:

001 | John Smith | Event A | RE | 01/01/2026
001 | John Smith | Event A | WC | 01/02/2026
001 | John Smith | Event B | RE | 01/03/2026

Basically, I am trying to figure out how many registrations have happened after withdrawals. The goal being to see if people are registering for events after they withdrew from previous ones. This way I can learn if we're retaining these people. I'd like some result that would basically show the following:

001 | John Smith | Registrations after Withdrawals: 1

I'm not sure if I'm wording this properly, but I hope that this makes sense. Is there a good formula for how to do this? I feel like it's COUNTIFS, but I'm not well-versed enough in these formulas yet to figure the criteria out.

We rebuilt a tire service price list from a phone screenshot in Excel. Some digits were blurred or overlapped, so copying the layout was only part of the task.

The main sheet contained 410 numeric cells, with each price in its own cell. We preserved all sections, notes and the overnight surcharge. A second sheet held the same information as a flat table with 413 rows.

We highlighted seven uncertain cells in yellow and explained the ambiguity in comments. Unusual but legible prices stayed unchanged. A value looking odd was not enough reason to alter it.

The client reviewed the workbook and made corrections. We then used that revised sheet to build a three-page A4 print version, keeping the text and tables as actual text in the PDF.

For the final check, we extracted text from the finished PDF and compared prices against the revised spreadsheet row by row. The handoff included the editable workbook alongside the print files.

Our takeaway: make uncertainty visible before it gets carried into another format, and check the exported document against the corrected spreadsheet.

How do you track ambiguous values during screenshot-to-spreadsheet work so they remain easy to review?

Hi everyone, sorry if this has been asked before, but I’m hoping someone might have a practical solution for this.

I work in a team of five people, and we all have to use and update several shared Excel files stored on SharePoint. Multiple people need to be able to work on the same file at the same time.

The problem is that these files were apparently designed by an automation team that clearly doesn’t actually do the task they’re used for. The result is an absolute nightmare from a usability perspective.

Each row contains a mix of information that we have to enter manually and other cells containing formulas. The columns are all over the place: it’s not like you have all the input columns first and then all the calculated columns. You might need to enter something in column A, then C, then suddenly BF, while columns in between contain formulas or other information. There are thousands of columns, the layout is extremely hard to read, and there aren’t even proper borders or visual cues to help you understand where you’re supposed to enter data.

Unfortunately, I can’t redesign or modify the structure because the files are owned and maintained by the automation team.

I come from a data analysis background, so I’m used to organising datasets in a logical way and building files that are actually usable. These files seem to be designed more as documentation/archive tools than as something humans are supposed to use for regular data entry, and I’m honestly struggling with how inefficient the process is.

I’ve tried to think of workarounds, but because the file is shared, my options seem limited. I can’t add helper formulas or significantly change the structure because other people are working in the same file. I also can’t simply hide all the irrelevant columns, because that would affect the shared view for everyone else.

Ideally, I’d like some way to create my own “data entry view” where I only see the specific cells/columns I actually need to fill in, even though those columns are scattered throughout the spreadsheet, while still entering the data into the original shared file.

For example, I might need to fill in columns A, C, and BF, while columns in between contain formulas that I shouldn’t touch.

Is there any practical way to make this kind of data entry less painful without changing the underlying shared file or affecting how other people work with it?

I’m open to any Excel/SharePoint workaround I may not have thought of. Thank you!

Hello everyone,

Im making some good progress with my work, but Im running into a problem.

Im currently using =FILTER to pull all data from an array. I then use this new data to compare 2 rows. Its in chronological order and im currently using =SUM to, for example, get total Charge Time by subtracting the time in A4 from A5. (Eg. 10:00:00 - 09:00:00 = 01:00:00)

This current method only works if the first row contains 0 in column P and the row below contaons 1 in the same column. (0 = end charge and 1 = start charge)

I want to be able to automatically ignore the first row if it contains 1 in column P, otherwise i end getting #CALC! errors.

I have a big query that combines our reports into one (jokingly named report of reports). It currently takes about 5 minutes to refresh. I abuse Query merging a lot to perform lookups and get the data in the right places. The current data set is only 10 MB but growing.

So Im trying to make a better method for restocking at my job. I have an excel file with 3 columns of interest.

Column A is product name, Column B is quantity, and Column C is product room.

In this file say we have product X both on the floor and in storage, we will have 2 seperate rows one with product x's quantity on the floor and 1 row with product xs quantity in storage.

I would like to highlight rows where a certain product either has no stock on the floor but has stock in storage, or has a qty on the floor under 5.

Is there anyway I can accomplish this with conditional formatting or any other method I can use to pull out the rows im looking for

I finally fixed a frustrating Excel issue and wanted to share the solution.

My setup:

• Windows 11

• Microsoft 365 Excel Version 2610 (Build 16.0.20527.20196), 64-bit

• NVIDIA RTX 5090

The problem:

Excel filter dropdown menus opened normally, but I couldn't select any checkboxes.

• 100% Windows scaling: worked perfectly

• 125% scaling: checkboxes unresponsive

• 150% scaling: same issue

What didn't work:

• Updating NVIDIA graphics drivers

• Running Excel in Safe Mode

• Changing Excel DPI compatibility settings

• Restarting Excel and resetting display scaling

The solution that worked for me:

1. Close all Microsoft Office applications.

2. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter.

3. Navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Graphics

1. Back up the registry key before making changes.

2. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named:

DisableHardwareAcceleration

1. Set its value to 1.

2. Restart Windows.

Result: Excel filter checkboxes started working normally again at 125% display scaling!

This fixed the issue on my system. It may not work for every Office version or hardware configuration. Back up your registry before making changes.

Hello everyone

Let me give you a little context I am currently working in a french hospital, and I would like to develop a tool to automate the creation of administrative letters, if you don't know french public administrations are VERY VERY VERY outdated i am working here as a buying manager and as expected from a place like this we lack staff a lot because of budget cuts so i am most of the time doing administrative task like writing letters instead of studying prices and doing negotiations.

We regularly receive supplier quotations and need to generate different types of formal boring documents ( to be honest we could just sign the pricing proposal but the Head of Department is from the medical field have no training in administration and she is very old so she wants to keep it that way ) so we write letters for things such as price acceptance letters, price revision and adjustment letters, product reference changes, product substitutions, currently, much of this work is done manually using Word.

Right now I have a dropdown to choose which type of letter I want, some fields for the supplier, contract number, product references, prices, dates etc. I also added another sheet where I can select which hospitals are concerned, and a small supplier database.

But I' am not really happy with it.

For example, if I choose a letter about changing a product reference, I still see fields asking for old prices, new prices and other stuff that has nothing to do with that letter

What I would really like is for the form to change depending on which letter I select. So only the information I actually need would appear. And then once everything is filled in, I just click a button and it generates the Word letter using our existing templates. Being able to export it to PDF would be nice too.

Now here's where I'm a bit lost.

Should I keep working on Excel and use VBA to make it better? Or should I just start over with Python and make a proper little application?

I am not a developer btw, I'm just interested in this stuff and trying to learn as I go, so for those of you who have more experience with this kind of thing, what would you do?

Would you stick with Excel/VBA or go for Python? And if Python is better, how would you make something that people can use without having to install Python themselves?

One important detail this is a hospital environment, so computers have IT restrictions, and most users aren't particularly good with computers. my goal is to eventually present a reliable, easy to use solution to my Head of Department.

Also how complicated would it be to make different forms for each letter type without having to code everything separately?

Sorry if these are stupid questions I am still figuring things out haha.

Any advice or feedback would really help!

so i would love your advice on

1. Is Excel/VBA sufficient for this kind of application?

2. Would Python be a better long-term solution?

3. What GUI framework would you recommend for non-technical Windows users?

4. How would you handle different document types with their own required fields?

5. How difficult would deployment and maintenance be in a restricted corporate environment?

6. I'm still learning, so any feedback on the architecture, user experience, or technical approach would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :))

( sorry for my english I am trying to not use ia )

I am working on a revision to a spreadsheet where I want to cross off some information but not delete it. When I am editing the cell, I can see the color change and strikethrough, but when I press enter, it is all the automatic color again.

How do I get the new formatting to stay visible? Thanks!

I am working on a project requiring me to sort about 80 different samples into categories based on which match across all of 8 different morphological characteristics in non-technical terms, the categories include, color of the organism, shape of the organism, and presence/absense or color of different specific features on the organism. Is there a way to use excel functions to do this easily? Essentially saying that if an organism is color = red, shape = circle and feature x = absent. It is assigned the same category as an organism with those same traits, but not the same category as an organism with the same traits aside from being triangular, rather than circular.

Ok, I'm sure this is incredibly dumb. I set up a sheet probably too close to a physical piece of paper than I should have but it's come such a long way that I don't want any further changes. Basically, what I need to do is find how many times a value in a cell heading is near a certain number in another sheet.

For example, let's say the heading is called "Equipment", and I would like to know how many times the number 8 is 2 columns left and 1 row down from it, in the next sheet.

Can either an offset or xlookup do something like that?

Heya,

I'm trying to create a textjoin/filter formula that concatenates results into a string where for 1 out of 2 filter criteria it applies to any cell that's not empty.

For example if my data looked like this:

If I wanted results for C (filter for column 1) I'd like it to give a result of 7.3,4.5,3 i.e. concatenate everything that's not empty (filter for column 2)

Anyone got any advice how to improve my cash flow forecast presentation? A lot of my challenges arise when I am asked to do on the spot amendments during internal discussions to arrive at the ideal closing balance.

My main objectives for forecasting are usually for checking if there are sufficient funding for tax payment or large payments in the main account.

The cash flow discussion gets very messy when I scroll to show the movements of fund transfers from different in-house bank accounts to the main account especially line by line payments. I also have separate excel tabs for the different accounts with the main account tab showing how it is linked to the different accounts.

My cash flow forecast format is opening, inflow, outflow and closing. The forecast profit and loss tab is also within the same file to keep track of what expense will be incurred. It is also linked to my cash flow forecast but without the non-cash items.

Challenges I face are:

1. Figuring out how to breakeven quickly - I am slow and tend to crack my head on how to work backwards to breakeven and it has to be on the spot during discussions. I have trouble using the excel formulas to breakeven.

2. Figuring out how much to save and how much to replenish with cash flow constraints. (Similar to breakeven except the closing balance will not be zero)

3. Making sure all relevant payments are forecasted.

4. Aligning tax computation and cash flow forecast because how I compute the tax will determine if cash is enough to cover tax.

It is a struggle for me and there is pressure on me as I am expected to know what to do as someone from finance.

Hi everyone,

Our company is planning to decommission an existing network drive, and I need to create a complete inventory of its contents before it is taken offline.

I'm looking for a way to generate an Excel overview of the entire network drive, including all folders, subfolders and files.

Ideally, the Excel spreadsheet should contain columns such as:

• Original folder path

• Folder and subfolder names

• File name

• File extension / type

• File size

• Last modified date

• New destination path (where the file or folder has been moved to)

• Migration status (not migrated / migrated / no longer needed)

The main goal is to:

1. Get a complete overview of everything currently stored on the network drive.

2. Use Excel to track which files and folders have been migrated.

3. Record the new location of each file or folder.

4. Identify which files and folders still need to be migrated before the old network drive is decommissioned.

I'm using Microsoft Excel for Microsoft 365 (desktop version) on Windows.

One important restriction: Due to company IT policies, I'm not allowed to download or install any third-party applications.

Therefore, the solution would need to use tools already available on Windows or Microsoft Office, such as PowerShell, Excel VBA or built-in Windows commands.

Is this something that can be achieved with PowerShell or VBA? And what would be the best approach?

If anyone has an example script or suggestions, I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance!

I feel like this is something that would be common place in the business world if it was easy, but I've never heard of it lol.

So I have a report with all of the company activity for a process, and I'm trying to create individual reports for each manager. the reports are set up so that I have one tab that manages the master data, then a tab for each manager that filters the data down to their employee code.

to get the reports to each manager, I have to:

1. copy the data from each tab into new workbooks as text

2. copy the formatting from each tab into the new workbooks

3. save the workbooks with a standardized (date) - (manager) format

there's gotta be a way to do the above steps with vba, right?

I used to have a lot of fun making spreadsheets. It required domain knowledge that you built up over long periods of time. But now anyone can get Claude to create something insane and beautiful in like 5 minutes given source data and a simple prompt.

And if you’re choosing to do it the old school way (manually), you’ll undoubtedly know your stuff better but everyone else will just run laps around you. It kinda sucks and it makes me sad. The skillset is not nearly as meaningful anymore when Claude can just leapfrog over you and do things in 1/100th of the time it would take a human.

>= looks trivial until COUNTIF returns 0 and you don't know why:

1. The ≥ symbol isn't an operator. =COUNTIF(E2:E100,"≥500") looks for cells containing the literal text "≥500". Always type >=.

2. Referencing a cell needs concatenation. =COUNTIF(E2:E100,">=F1") compares against the text "F1". You want =COUNTIF(E2:E100,">="&F1).

3. Numbers stored as text don't match. If your values came from a CSV and are left-aligned, ">=500" skips them. Fix the column with VALUE() or Text to Columns first.

4. Dates: use DATE() in the criteria. ">="&DATE(2025,7,1) is unambiguous. A typed date string depends on your regional settings and can quietly match nothing.

Bonus: <> is "not equal", and "<>" on its own counts non-empty cells.

I have a tonne of data that has been exported from PDF to excel (not by me) and it hasn't done a great job.

Many rows have been combined by the initial column, e.g.

I need to separate them out into individual rows, with the date duplicated where necessary. The problem is in some instances "input 1" was very long in the PDF and split onto 2 lines, such as...

What's the best way of doing this? There are 150,000+ rows, annoyingly

Hello!!! I have a large Excel project that I'm about to embark on. Using cars as an example, imagine i manage a huge garage of rental cars, and I want an Excel to manage all of the data and produce analysis sheets and charts. Each car (approximately 20-50 range, but it will change) would have it's own sheet, standardized, with all relevant data. An important nuance here, there are certain data fields that will be longer than others , like a maintaince log.

My question is for linking all the car sheets to ask the analysis sheets. Let's say one of my data pages is just a summation of total miles. Do I create 50 black car sheets at the beginning and then link them all and be done with it as I populate them over time with data? Or can I have it look for new car sheets so if I make a new one it automatically adds it ( I want to avoid going back to every analysis sheet and add the new car sheet into the formulas.

Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone. I'm working on a data science project for economics and could really use some help :)

I need to collect some data from WDI and adjust it. But some of the original data is missing and appears as "..". When I apply the adjustment formula, the corresponding cells return "#VALUE!".

When I try to run the regression using excel's data analysis, I get an error saying "Input range contains non-numeric data".

I just asked AI and it suggested leaving the cells containing "#VALUE!" blank. But after doing that I now get another error: "LINEST() function returns error. Please check input ranges again."

I also noticed that one of the adjusted values is "-2E-05". I tried changing its cell format to Number, but the regression still doesn't work.

Does anyone have any idea how I can fix them? Thanks!

Don't seem to be able to read a value from a cell in a linked (closed) worksheet. The code below just seems to stop before reaching the MsgBox "test 2" test line with no error displayed. The return from the function is then always #VALUE

Private Function GetCellTest() As Variant
    CellPath = "'C:\...\[Nov.xlsx]Sheet1'!A1"
    MsgBox "test 1"
    CellPathValue = CellPath.Value
    MsgBox "test 2"
    GetCellTest = CellPathValue
End Function

Hi

I have a XLL file, an addin, that is native 32. It (x86) C++, compiled in August 2008. It isn't .net.

How can i get the namespaces and worksheet functions out of it since I can't use on my machine anymore, and AI doesn't know how.

Thought to reach out here to see if someone has an idea.

Thanks

I'm an accountant at a small company that does payroll and invoicing. Somewhere along the way I became the only person who touches our systems, and the crown jewel of my shame is a set of VBA macros that still run [weekly] on a hosted VM, kicked off by Power Automate Desktop, feeding Dataverse.
They work. That's the problem. Every time I open the editor to fix something I find a Sub I don't remember writing, and the only test suite is "did payroll go out."
I've been watching the Power Query vs Python-in-Excel threads here and I'm torn. Power Query would cover most of the transforms, but I've got [X] workbooks with UI-driven steps (opening files, clicking through an ERP export) that PQ can't do. Python in Excel looks great until I remember it runs in the cloud and can't touch my local files. So I keep patching VBA.
If you've actually migrated a load-bearing VBA process to something else, what did you move it to and what broke? And for those who didn't: is "it works, leave it" a legitimate strategy or am I just rationalizing?