Last week, Our of curiosity and fun I asked you “how long have you been using Excel?“.
I was overwhelmed by the response we got to this simple question. More than 437 people responded with their comments, stories and enthusiastic responses. Thank you so much.
It would taken me more time to make the charts and understand the data. But thanks to Hui, who volunteered to tabulate all the survey data in a simple CSV. He also made an interesting dynamic dashboard from this data-set so that you can search and visualize matches. More on this below.
First the data:
We had 437 responses to the poll. While this is no way a good representation of all the 300 million Excel users out there, I would say this is a pretty good sample of Chandoo.org readers.
The key statistics are,
- Median Excel age is 14 years
- Average is 13.2 years
- Minimum is 6 months
- Maximum is 26 years (Rod Reed, Haseen I Alam and Jack Nefus)
Message #1: Excel Teens & Tweens are a majority
When I ran the survey, I thought, a majority of people would be in the Excel age group of 3-10 years. But I was surprised to say the least when I saw the data. More than 45% of the respondents have been using Excel for 11 years or more.
Chart – Excel Age distribution
What this means – possible explanations
- Biased data set (!?!): Since people who started using Excel just a few years ago tend to be not so serious about it, they may not have responded to the survey or neglected it. On the other hand, people who have been using Excel for more than a 10 years tend to be more passionate about it and thus they are active on sites like chandoo.org. So they are prone to responding to surveys or indulging in discussions.
- Excel user base shrinking: With the launch of drag-and-drop analysis tools like Tableau and cheap alternatives like Google docs, Open Office and Zoho, may be Excel user base is shrinking. This could be the reason behind such heavy concentration of 10-19 year user base.
Message #2: Excel 95 and 97 are very popular versions
I wanted to understand how the year on which users started using Excel correlated with Excel releases. So I flipped the chart and plotted Number of people by Year. Then I overlaid Excel releases as noted in Excel history time-line chart. Here is what I got,
Chart – Year people started using Excel by Number of people
What this means – possible explanation
- The big spikes in data coincide with releases of Excel 95 and 97. In fact, you could notice that a large chunk of users (~30%) have started using Excel between 1995 and 1998. We can attribute this to features like VBA (introduced in 1993), Windows 95 launch and spreading of concepts like MIS, Business Intelligence, enterprise databases and business analysis.
Note: this could just be a coincidence.
Additional Charts prepared by Hui:
Hui, our guest author and resident Excel Ninja, prepared an impressive dynamic dashboard from this data set. Using this dashboard, you can search for a name or year or age and highlight matches and do some fun analysis (like the distribution of names by first letter of first name) etc.
Few sample charts from Hui’s workbook:
Download Excel workbooks with this analysis:
- Click here to download my workbook with both the charts above and associated formulas etc.
- Click here to download Hui’s dynamic dashboard workbook
- Click here to download just the data (CSV format) so that you can do your own analysis.
Open Challenge to you – Visualize the Excel Age survey Data
Go ahead and download the data here. Make a chart or set of them so that we all can understand the data better.
Excel Techniques used in my charts:
- Generating Frequency distributions for a histogram using FREQUENCY Formula
- Box plot with quartiles overlaid on a regular column chart (more on box plots)
- Text boxes with fill color to create visual segments by age
- Labels on a dummy series (on secondary axis) to show the Excel versions, much like project milestone time-line chart
If you like this post, you will love,
- Visualization of last visible cell in Excel survey
- Visualizing survey results in a panel chart – Excel example
- Want to create similar charts and work with data like a ninja? Join my Excel School online training program
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
Hello I am so glad I found your web site, I really found you by accident,
while I was browsing on Bing for something else, Nonetheless I am here now and would
just like to say thanks a lot for a remarkable post and a all round entertaining blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to
read it all at the moment but I have book-marked
it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a lot more,
Please do keep up the fantastic work.
This is GREAT!
How should the code be changed in order to tun once for all worksheets in a workbook?