Wish you a happy new year and Welcome back to Chandoo.org.
So how did you celebrate the new year’s eve? We put the kids to sleep early and partied till 1. Next day, we took them to a park. The kids loved grass, trees and ran like wind.
What about you?
As for the new year plans, I think it is fair to review how the plans I made last year worked out. Last year, my goals were,
- run 20k
- start excel school
- travel less
- do what I enjoy, more.
Except the running goal, I achieved everything else. It feels good to have not traveled at all and run 3 batches of Excel School in last year. Since I love writing and learning new things, I quit my job in April last year to work on this blog full-time. It seems like the best decision in my life so far.
This year too I have simple goals.
- Run & workout often: After I quit my job, I started my business from home. This meant work intertwined with parenting. Since we have twins, taking time out for simple tasks like jogging seemed impossible on some days. I did workout on a lot of days, but my fitness has gone-down in last one year. This year I plan to dedicate more time to working out and running.
- Spread Excel School to More People: Excel School has been a grand success since its launch. I want to make even more people awesome in Excel in this year.
- Start PowerPoint School: You heard me right. I have been preparing material & gathering ideas on running a PowerPoint training program. Very soon, you will hear about it.
- Conduct 2 Live Excel Workshops: I have been itching to conduct live workshops on MS Excel & related topics. But due to job and parenting, I could not say yes to any opportunities that came along. This year, the scene is different. So I plan to conduct at least 2 live Excel Workshops and meet some of you face to face this year.
- Learn more: Even though I did not aim for it, last year I ended up reading a lot of books and blogs. This year, I plan to continue the trend. I want to become good in Pivot Tables, Data Analysis, Learn tools like Tableau, Access, Become a better businessman.
What awesome things you are planning to accomplish this year? And how do you think Chandoo.org can help you in achieving them? Please share using comments.
Excel Links:
Here are some Excel & Visualization related links that I recommend. Go thru them to learn something awesome.
The joy of stats – Recommended Video Talk
Prof. Hans Rosling is one my Data Visualization Gurus. He is passionate about statistics and how it can help us understand data better. In this very entertaining talk, he tells us how statistics is joy. Please set aside an hour and watch this. It is totally beautiful.
A very good article from UXMatters website on Dashboard Design Principles. I particularly liked the portion on “What data should we display?”.
Importing Excel Data in to Access
Danny explains the process behind importing Excel data in to Access. You can watch the whole thing in a short Youtube video. The explanation is very clear and easy to follow.
Learn 30 Excel Formulas in 30 Days
Debra at Contextures blog has started a new series on 30 formulas in 30 days. She opens the series with a bang by explaining the EXACT formula. I am going to follow this series and contribute to the discussion by writing 1-2 followup posts on chandoo.org. I suggest you follow it too. This is the easiest way to learn 30 different formulas in 30 days. PS: You can also learn 51 Excel formulas.
Using Excel to Build Crossword Puzzles
Have ever used Excel to build crossword puzzles? Dick Kusleika did. He shares with us a template & macro code to create crossword puzzles using Excel. Pretty interesting and cool stuff.
Browse more Excel Links or Share a link with me (email me at chandoo.d @ gmail.com)
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
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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?