Please stop asking me this question. I have many more files to copy and paste from before the dawn comes, and your constant questioning is slowing me right down. Set me free, won't you Excel, to brave the wild rapids of memory management myself. Or at least give me the option to turn this question off.
UPDATE
50. It's 50 cells. Try to copy 'n' paste 51 cells of data out of Excel and it waves the big old flag of caution at you! Proceed with your 51 cells of leadlined data at your own risk! The last table of data I updated was around the 200 cell mark! I've been operating at over four times Excel's recommended limit and I didn't know it! I COULD HAVE DIED!!
So, remember: Fifty cells, you're safe. Fifty-one cells, you're on your own, you maniac!
Posts
There is a large amount of information in your cache..
ReplyDeleteThis is the thought that interupts my mind every time I load your Blog page.. any chance you can reduce the number of posts showing on your front page..? They make the side scroll button so small..
I'd recommend switching to OpenOffice as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, according to that article the port to Aqua is still under construction. So I guess Mac users have to stick with the Microsoft product for the moment. :-)
CK, how often are you scrolling down the main page? Why don't you use the scroll wheel on your mouse? Or a two-finger scroll on your trackpad if you're using a laptop? Or even just click the scroll arrows if your mole-vision makes using the scroll bar too difficult.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, though. :)
JJ, thankfully Excel intrudes into my workflow only rarely, and it's only an annoyance at the moment because the book I'm working on has an awful lot of stats in it.
ReplyDeleteNumbers, part of the iWork package could probably handle it. But yeah, ridiculous how Excel asks this question even if you do have a large amount of data copied.
ReplyDeleteAnd the title for this post is sublime I tells ya.
ReplyDelete"Numbers, part of the iWork package could probably handle it."
ReplyDeleteOh, there are other options for sure, and if it were up to just me I'd quite possibly go for one of them. Although, in a work environment, I'm not sure I'd want to risk even the slight possibility of conversion error between applications, even if they claim (and likely do) work with each other's formats. I think I'd rather play it safe and always use the same app as what the client used to generate their data. Upstream is where we really need the change!
"But yeah, ridiculous how Excel asks this question..."
I haven't worked out what the trigger point is (which is something I'd normally do, just haven't had the time), but Excel doesn't always ask. There is figure beneath which it doesn't consider the amount of data to be large. It just doesn't seem Microsoft has raised that figure since our PCs had 640K of RAM and two floppy drives.
"And the title for this post is sublime I tells ya."
You're very kind. Please come again.
I think it's nice of Excel to ask actually. Yes, Apostropher, let the age of courtesy be consigned to the history books. Of course, I don't suppose you were around in the days of the mid-80s when I spent countless hours staring at my green screen waiting for Multiplan (wedged in the spreadsheeting timeline between Visicalc and Lotus 1-2-3) to recalculate cells. But no, you go on and demand that Microsoft eliminate this brief, polite interruption to your busy day. :)
ReplyDeleteDo you know, Murt, I still sometimes have to check if what I've just read was by you or JJ. You really do speak with one voice (although there's less anti-Apple vitriol in what you write. Hehe.)
ReplyDelete"...you go on and demand that Microsoft eliminate this brief, polite interruption..."
But here's the thing, yesterday I answered this question close to one hundred times! I don't care what the question is (excluding "Do you have FlyBuys?" of course), if someone's asking it of you one hundred times in a day, they're clearly not listening, and that, my friend, is the height of rudeness! :)
Do you know, Murt, I still sometimes have to check if what I've just read was by you or JJ. You really do speak with one voice
ReplyDeleteWell, except that here MR is defending Excel and I'm exhorting you to switch to the alternative as soon as it runs on your hardware. (and also as soon as it can handle MS's latest "improvement" to Excel's file format -- see b) below.)
(although there's less anti-Apple vitriol in what you write. Hehe.)
Um, I'm pretty sure that in this thread I'm viciously kicking Microsoft, gently rebuking OpenOffice.org, and saying nothing about Apple.
I think I'd rather play it safe and always use the same app as what the client used to generate their data. Upstream is where we really need the change!
Being a data processing bore, I could spend hours geeking out and boring everyone with a detailed response to this...
But, to summarise:
a) The best program is always the one that is easiest for you to use in your workflow.
b) Excel .xls files are a pretty standard file format by now. Which is probably why Excel 2007 uses .xlsx, OpenOffice support for which is only in Beta as I write.
(Comma-seperated .csv is an even more standard file format, and a lot more suitable for most of the situations where I've seen spreadsheets being emailed around - but I digress.)
c) How the customers produce data is dependent on their own internal processes, and different customers may use different means to generate data. e.g. Customer A may use OpenOffice, Customer B Excel, and Customer C iWork. What's important is the format of the data itself (see 'b)') and what you do with it once you've got it (see 'a)')
d) The customer never changes anything to make your job easier. Harder, yes. Easier, no. :-)
Oh, sigh.
ReplyDeleteI was, of course, speaking generally, JJ, and generally speaking you like to argue the opposing point, even if it's not one you actually believe, and generally speaking you like to stick the boots into Apple (and their users), even if only to get a rise out of me. Where's that old thread where I say that for someone so fond of a wind up, you wind up more easily than an old tin toy. :)
"The customer never changes anything to make your job easier."
What? Man, I don't know about you, but I have ones who do that all the time! There was one time that they... wait, or was it, um, oh, it's coming to me, they, um... oooh, when was it, hang on... I... anyway, happens all the time!
Oh, and Mr MR, I meant to sat before, Visicalc and Lotus 123 I have heard of, but Multiplan?! Happy days? My Dad thinks back fondly to his days using DOS and the text-only interface of Word Perfect with its two-tone colour scheme. No tricky things like scissor and clipboard icons to click on back then. He reckons he was a million times more efficient. And he's probably right, given that he can't seem to understand modern virtual interfaces and really just wants a string of keyboard commands to memorise.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Mr MR, I meant to sat before, Visicalc and Lotus 123 I have heard of, but Multiplan?!
ReplyDeleteMultiplan was actually a Microsoft, yes Microsoft product released as a competitor to Visicalc. I reckon I was using it until about 1987 by which time Lotus 1-2-3 was ascendant. And by the time Windows became prevalent, Microsoft had replaced MP with Excel and the rest is, er, history. Quattro Pro fitted in there somewhere as well.
After Wordstar and others dominated the fledgling word processing scene, WordPerfect certainly was the rage and yes it was a shocker to format, but once you were proficient, folk swore by it. (But not me). When Word turned up, there were pockets of WP resistance for years. The legal profession seemed to hold onto it the longest. Read about it all in my memoirs. :)