Michelle, Who is a sweet lady and regular reader of the blog sent me this question via e-mail. (aside: why is she a sweet lady? Because she saw the new cell post and sent me pics of her son and told Jo and me are about to encounter most amazing experiences of our lives 🙂 )
I handle the invoices we give to our customers (we build and sell furniture), but sometimes such customers can be stores or just regular folks that come directly to us.
For the stores I have to give an invoice that has a NCF number which is a tax related number that increases the cost in 16% but stores require this number which must be unrepeatable. Each company has a “list” of numbers that they can provide their customers. Regular customers (not stores) have no interest in this number, obviously trying to avoid the 16% increase in the price!
So far what I did was create a database of our customers with the basic info of each one. Many of our customers keep buying so this way I just have to place myself in the invoice and select from a list and with a simple vlookup I get the rest of the customer’s information: phone, address and RNC number.
Now… the RNC is the number that tells me if it’s a store or not. Stores must have their registration number (RNC) in order to receive invoices with NCF (boring, I know… I’m gonna get to the point in a sec). Ok, so if I choose my dear customer “Chandoo Enterprises” and this store has RCN, then I automatically need for the invoice to pull form “my list” of government assigned NCF numbers, the next one in line. If in my previous invoice (say invoice 1455) to another store I used NCF number A010010010100000002 (that’s how they look) for Chandoo Enterprises -invoice #1456- I am going to need the next number in line A010010010100000003 and so on. Now, say that my next invoice (1457) is not to a store but to John Doe, for him I don’t want an NCF number to show.
I keep thinking that there’s a very stupid and simple way to do this but I just can’t nail it!! My problem is to get to a formula that will work only when the RNC field has information and therefore avoiding NCF numbers to appear on non-store customers (not so complicated I think) and that it chooses the next NCF number in line, no repeating… this is the part that I have no idea how to do!! Is there a way to solve this without using VBA? VBA is scary!! Hehehe
Okay, that is a big question, but may be we can come up with a small solution for it.
If I understand it correct, Michelle is looking for something like this:
So, in order to generate such numbers,
- First we will make 2 named ranges – customer_list and ncf_numbers. You know what they mean.
- Now, we will enter the customer name in column B, and based on that we will fetch RNC number in column C.
- For this, we will use VLOOKUP () formula. The simplest formula looks like this: VLOOKUP(B5,customer_list,4,FALSE)
- But, simplest formula also has problems – it doesn’t handle errors and can return 0 when the RNC number field is blank. So we will add some fat to it, mainly on the front side. It now looks like this: =IF(ISERROR(VLOOKUP(B5,customer_list,4,FALSE)),””, VLOOKUP(B5,customer_list,4,FALSE))
- In the third column, we will fetch the next available NCF number if the customer has an RNC. For this, we use a simple IF() and COUNTIF() formulas along with INDEX() formula. We write: =IF(OR(C5=””,C5=0),””,INDEX(ncf_numbers,COUNTIF($C$5:C5,”RNC*”))).
- Above formula simple fetches the nth NCF number from the named range ncf_numbers if RNC number is not blank.
- That is all. We now have a simple logic to generate invoice numbers that suit tax authority’s whims and fancies.
Download the example workbook:
You can download the excel tutorial workbook and see how you can generate such invoice numbers yourself.
More material if you are getting stuck with formulas
50+ Excel Formulas – Explained in plain English, Excel formula tutorials, Excel array formula examples
28 Responses to “Pimp your comment boxes [because it is Friday]”
This borders on Excel soft-cell...er, soft-core...porn. My favorite kind.
Wow, that is pimp-TASTIC! I have a question, as a VBA n00b: additional comment boxes stay plain unless I "run" the macro. Is there a way to change all comments, going-forward?
hi Chandoo, well, I like the macro approach. For those who don't like it, there is another way: just add the "draw" toolbar to the shapes toolbar (via Custom etc), click on "edit comment", click on the auto-shape and then choose "draw" drop-down, --> modify auto-shape --> then you even can have a heart or a banner (I like the horizontal banner in in purple :-)) . in excel 2007, you have to add this custom menu that you choose via Excel Options --> Custom --> it is called "change/ modify auto-shape"!!!
best,
@Chandoo. Great Post 🙂
@Tim : the way the macro is coded, it must be run very time.
@Community: If someone has an idea to perform it when opening an existing excel, it should be nice.
@Community: if someone has some code to revamp the commentboxes on all sheets, please share it. 🙂
@Microsoft Excel-progammers: some pimpoptions for the commentboxes should be great.
Cheerio
Tom
For the auto run, please add the codes in workbook:
Private Sub Workbook_SheetActivate(ByVal Sh As Object)
Call Comments_Tom
End Sub
Wow, that was a lot of fun... Thanks Tom!
@Jeff... Now, 5000 people know about your favorite porn... 😛
@Tim ... you can write an event to handle the new comments. I wouldnt recommend it as it is really painful. another option is to use the macro suggested by Yukikomi. It will update comments everytime you activate the sheet.
@laguerriere: very cool 🙂
@Chandoo ... Thanks! This is good stuff. I combined your tip with a tip from Mark O'Brien, then assigned it to a button on Excel 2010's Quick Access Toolbar, to format comments AS I add them. I also like how Mark's code saves me the trouble of backspacing my name out of new comments:
Sub AppendToExistingComment()
'Source: Mark O'Brien at http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57296
Dim oRange As Range
Dim oComment As Comment
Dim sText As String
'Use object variable to hold range.
Set oRange = ActiveCell
'Use object variable for comment
Set oComment = oRange.Comment
'text to be added to the comment box
sText = InputBox("Type text to be added:", "APPEND TO COMMENT TEXT")
If Len(sText) = 0 Then End
'If Active Cell has a comment then append new text to the end of the comment text
If Not oComment Is Nothing Then
sText = oComment.Text & vbNewLine & sText
oRange.Comment.Delete
End If
'Add a comment with the contents of sText
oRange.AddComment sText
DoEvents
Comments_Tom
End Sub
Thank you very much for the code, it seems to be working for the most part; I am having a problem however. Once the routine makes the corrections to the comment, the comment becomes invisible. By invisible, I mean that when I highlight my mouse over it, nothing appears. However, when I right click the cell and click 'edit comment' then the comment becomes visible and I enter edit mode. Upon clicking out of the comment, it simply vanishes again. I've tried to fix this problem by adding a .shape.visible = msoTrue but then every comment is always visible. o_O please advise...
Thank you,
Nick
@Nick- That is because the font color of the comment is white and when you select the color of selection is also white hence you can not see anything. Try to change the color code in the routine to something else. would work
Thanks for that! The code works perfectly!
[...] look at Format Excel Comment Boxes using VBA Macros | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online [...]
@ Chandoo - code works great and the comments look super cool. But I have ran into a small issue. In the comments, I am inserting pictures. When I run the macro, for all comments which already have pictures; pictures are deleted. Pls help me retain the pics in comments.
[…] posted some code one of his readers submitted, it "pimps" your comment boxes from those boring black-text-on-yellow rectangles to something more professional and eye-pleasing. […]
love in it
Hi Tom,
This looks really excellent. I am however relatively new to macros / VBA codes so having copy pasted your code in the Developer mode of an Excel file, what are the next steps to use them? Can you please help? Just to recap, I opened a blank Excel workbook, clicked on Developer, copy pasted the comments code and saved the file to the desktop.
Now how do I go about using it to add comments to an existing file? My apologies for asking a question which may be basic to you great geniuses, but I am not there yet and aspire to get there.
Many thanks for helping me with next steps that I need to take so that I can now use the code.
Best Wishes
Deepak Dave, CMA, MBA, PMP
Senior Management Consultant
Dear Dave,
The best thing to do is to copy the macro in the personal.xls(x) file. The personal excel file will always be launched when you open excel so you can use it with every excelworkbook.
Read all about it on the page of Microsoft.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Copy-your-macros-to-a-Personal-Macro-Workbook-aa439b90-f836-4381-97f0-6e4c3f5ee566
Once you have the macro in the personal, you can 'call' the macro by the keyboardcombination 'alt+f8' and klik on the macroname.
Hope this clarifies the 'how to'. Good luck with your first steps in the wonderfull world of macro's.
Tom
Hi Tom,
Many thanks. I will try that out. Learning is fun and learning this stuff is even more amazing.
Best Wishes
Deepak Dave
There is a line 'Dim LArea As Long' which does not appear to be used. Have I missed something?
Dear Gary,
Correct the 'Dim LArea As Long' is indeed not relevant and can be deleted.
Tom
Excellent hack!
For some reason when I opened my file after using LibreOffice Calc, all comment boxes had changed to some arrow shape.
So this macro helped me from manually changing more than 5000 comments in a worksheet, or having to install some Excel extension.
I used it with the following attributes to get back old style comments:
It helped me from manually changing more than 5000 comments in a worksheet, or having to install some Excel extension.
.Shape.AutoShapeType = msoShapeRectangle
.Shape.TextFrame.Characters.Font.Name = "Calibri"
.Shape.TextFrame.Characters.Font.Size = 10
.Shape.TextFrame.AutoMargins = True
.Shape.TextFrame.AutoSize = True
Thanks a lot!
This was helpful, thank you
I think this is among the most significant
information for me. And i am glad reading your article.
But wanna remark on some general things, The site style is great,
the articles is really great : D. Good job, cheers
Is there code to add to this that will format a particular part of the comment (i.e. make the last sentence in the comment bold and in italics)?
This is fantastic!
How would I add auto-sizing to it?
I tried adding this:
.Shape.AutoSize = True but it gives me an error and as a novice at VBA I can't figure it out.
.Shape.TextFrame.AutoSize = True
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This is GREAT!
How should the code be changed in order to tun once for all worksheets in a workbook?