Hiding Error Messages – Quick Tip

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Hello all

Chandoo has graciously, some may say stupidly, given me access to post on Chandoo.org.

I have been a reader of Chandoo.org for about 2 years and have spent most of my time contributing to the Forums where I have just posted my 950th post.

I have written a few small posts which Chandoo has used, and I wrote a major post on Monte Carlo Simulation and Data Tables:

http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/05/06/data-tables-monte-carlo-simulations-in-excel-a-comprehensive-guide/

Which was well recieved.

I will be starting to post about once per week and will be introducing a series of real life problems and how they can be tackled using Excel.

Hiding Error Messages

I like to leave certain error messages in place because they can show you what your data is doing, but they look horrible when you print out reports.

One way around this is to use functions like =Iserr or =Iserror to trap the error and display something else

Eg: A formula =A1/A2 will divide A1 by A2 and give you an answer,

but if A2 is 0 you will get a Divide Zero Error #DIV/0!

To fix that you can use the =IFERROR Function =IFERROR(A1/A2,0) which will now give you a zero if A2 is zero

But if you don’t mind seeing, or want to see, the errors on screen, but don’t want to print them out you can have Excel hide the error messages at Print time.

Page Setup - Sheet Options

How:

Goto the Page Setup menu
On the Sheet Tab use the Cell errors as:
and select <Blank>, “–“ or #N/A as appropriate

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11 Responses

  1. Ciao Hui,
    Collecting Excel tricks under the title “Notable Excel Websites (Non-MVP) Edition” is a brilliant idea…
    Thank you in the name of all The FrankensTeam.
    On our site there is a box with a picture and text highlighting:

    This is a no-MVP site
    we think ourselves “bad boys” a bit 🙂
    For those who would like to know why our site is a no-MVP site, enough to click on the link:
    http://goo.gl/lxDszY
    Thank you again!

  2. I really enjoyed this (newsletter). I must admit that I rarely read an Excel newsletter (and I subscribe to quite a few) all the way though, but this grabbed my attention and before I realized it, I was engrossed in it. I must also admit that most of this I don’t understand, yet. But, it excites me when I do learn something new in Excel. I can’t wait to see how much of this I can implement into my (constantly-evolving) ‘House Budget’ & ‘Family Medical’ worksheets that I have developed over the past few years! I sure hope to see more of these type of newsletters in the future! Thanks!

  3. Hui, This post is Superb! More over I have always been a fan of Roberto’s work and have learnt a lot from him.

    Here are some of my recent contributions

    1. Customising markers in a chart – http://www.goodly.co.in/customize-markers-in-a-chart/
    2. Charting Hacks to work faster – http://www.goodly.co.in/5-charting-hacks-to-help-you-work-faster/
    3. 7 Date formulas to make life easy – http://www.goodly.co.in/date-formulas-in-excel/
    4. Customised scrollbar using VBA – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
    5. Adding Direct Legends – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/

    Hope everyone enjoys!

  4. I like the Excel Ninja Menus.
    1. Select a cell or range then move till the 4-way cross appears. Right-Click and drag the selection to another place in the worksheet then, like a ninja, a menu full of skills and throwing stars pops up allowing me to do all kinds of awesomeness.
    2. When you click the fill box on a Date and right click and drag it down, a lot of amazing Date options pop up.
    I also brand my Excel to remind myself that I’m awesome. In my personal macro workbook I place the following code.
    Private Sub Workbook_Open()
    Application.Caption = “SuperKrishna’s Awesomeness”
    End Sub

  5. My favorite tip goes along with #17. If you try to copy subtotaled data (and in earlier Excel versions filtered data),when you paste it all the data displays instead of just the summarized data.
    To get around this, select your summarized data, click on Find and Select tab and then select Go to Special. Click Visible cells Only and click OK. Now paste and you will see that only the summarized data has been copied.
    You can also go CTRL+G and then click the Special icon at the bottom of the dialog box.

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