Not that I have friggatriskaidekaphobia or anything. But since today is Friday & 13th, lets put our Excel skills to test and find out when the next Friday the 13th is going to be.
(trivia: Check this for some interesting facts about Friday the 13th)
Finding Next Friday the 13th using Excel Formulas – Approach 1
Lets say, you have a date in cell C3, and you want to find out when the next Friday, the 13th is going to be starting the date in cell C3.
The first approach I can think of is pretty straight forward.
We list all the 13ths in a column and find the next 13th which is also a Friday. For this,
- In cell E3, we write =MONTH(C3)
- In cell F3, we write =YEAR(C3)
- We use these 2 cells to refer to the month and year of the starting date.
- Then, we write in an empty cell =DATE($F$3,$E$3+ROWS($A$1:A1),13) – lets say this cell is E5
- This gives us the 13th date of next month, from the start date in cell C3.
- Now, lets drag this formula and fill it down, for say, next 100 cells to get next 100 13ths.
- The ROWS($A$1:A1) portion generates continuous numbers from 1 thru 100 and thus we get next 100 13ths.
For more on this technique, read – Using ROWS() to generate a series of numbers
Once all the 13ths are listed, in an adjacent column, we can use WEEKDAY() formula to see if the 13th is a Friday – WEEKDAY(E5)=6
This column will have a bunch of TRUE & FALSE values.
Now to find the next Friday the 13th, we just look for TRUE value in this column (say F5:F104) use it to derive the date.
So this formula =DATE(F3,E3+MATCH(TRUE,$F$5:$F$104,0),13) should give us the next Friday, the 13th.
Break up of above formula:
- MATCH(TRUE,$F$5:$F$104,0) tells us the position of first TRUE value (ie first Friday, the 13th in our list)
- DATE(F3,E3+Match value, 13) gives the date of next Friday, the 13th
- Remember, F3 contains the year and E3 the month of starting date you entered in C3.
Finding Friday the 13th, 2nd Approach
While above approach works fine, it requires a few helper columns. So I got thinking, how can we write a one shot formula that gives us next Friday, the 13th date?
First the formula:
This is an array formula.
{ =DATE(YEAR($C$3), MATCH(TRUE, WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR($C$3),MONTH($C$3)+ROW($A$1:$A$100), 13))=6,0) + MONTH($C$3),13) }
Scary formula indeed. We may have to coin a word for fear of long excel formulas – doubleXLformulaphophia.
How does this formula work?
Before understanding the portions of this formula, we need to understand the approach.
This formula uses similar thinking as of earlier formula. Just that it shrinks all those helper columns to an array and works the magic.
To find next Friday, the 13th, we need to list down next few 13ths and check which one is a Friday. Since Excel lookup formulas always return the first match, we find the first such Friday.
Parts of the formula:
- To get the next 100 13ths, we use, DATE(YEAR($C$3),MONTH($C$3)+ROW($A$1:$A$100), 13)
When used in an array formula, this gives us the 13th days of next 100 months.
(aside: technically, we do not need next 100 months. As per Wikipedia, the maximum gap between successive Friday, the 13ths is 14 months. more)
Also, note that we are using ROW() formula, not ROWS(), as we want all the row numbers for first 100 rows as an array.
- Once we have these 100 dates, we just check for their Fridayness with, WEEKDAY(100 dates))=6
This formula returns a 100 TRUE & FALSE values. TRUE, whenever the date is a Friday, FALSE, when it is not.
- Then, we find the first TRUE value (ie first occurrence of Friday, the 13th in next 100 months) with, MATCH(TRUE, next 100 dates’ Fridayness, 0)
This gives us the position of next TRUE value.
- Finally, we use that to construct the date of next Friday, the 13th – DATE(YEAR($C$3), MONTH($C$3) + first TRUE value, 13)
And that is how we find the next Friday the 13th based on the start date in cell C3.
Important Note:
Both approaches only search for Friday, the 13th starting next month of the date in C3. If C3 has a date prior to 13th and the 13th of that month is a Friday, the 13th, it would not be considered. For example, if you enter 10-JAN-2012 in C3, both formulas would find next Friday the 13th as April 13, 2012 not Jan 13, 2012.
Download Friday, the 13th Example Workbook
I have made a colorful (and almost gory) download workbook. Even if you do not want to learn this, I suggest downloading the file, for fun!
Click here to download the Friday, 13th calculations workbook & play with it.
Bonus: It has homework too!
Your Homework
Finally some homework to wrap up this week.
Write a formula to find the maximum gap between consecutive Friday, the 13ths in next 5 years, from a starting date in cell C3.
Please post your answers in comments so that we all can learn.
Checkout more Formula Forensics
Once in a while, we take a complex real world (or as in this case, gory world) problem and write an equally scary formula. Then, we go great lengths breaking it down and explaining it. We call this as Formula Forensics. Much like forensics in CSI, without ultra zoom & hot chicks. You can check out some of our recent adventures here:
- Using an array formula to count maximum occurrences of a text
- Counting specific words in a multi-cell range
- Extracting a list of items from a larger list by criteria
- … More formula forensics
PS: It is also Hui’s birthday today. Lets wish him many more years of fun, happiness & Excel craze.
PPS: Finding his next birthday is going to be simple, we just write =DATE(2013,1,13) 😛
38 Responses to “Time to showoff your VBA skills – Help me fix ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert snafu”
I tried your code with 2003, it works.
But, I know Addpicture does not take URLs anymore with 2007 onwards, perhaps its the same with picture.insert as well.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928983/en-us
The above link gives the solution as "picture fill in a shape such as a rectangle".
Tried to recreate this, but it worked fine for me. I just took the image of the error you showed in the post. Is there more info that can narrow this down a bit?
Don't know if this helps?
http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=47101
Hi
Not sure if this is what you're after, but I just tried this
Sub Macro1()
ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/images/logo.gif").Select
End Sub
Tied a button to it on the sheet and it seems to work; hope this helps a little
Ian
@All.. the issue is in Excel 2007. In 2003 ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert seems to work fine. Unfortunately, I have design this in Excel 2007.. that is why I posted it here..
v2
Sub Macro1()
Set n = ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/images/logo.gif")
With Range("c12")
t = .Top
l = .Left
End With
With n
.Top = t
.Left = l
End With
End Sub
Ian
That didn't come out very well. This positions at c12, so can change easily:
Sub Macro1()
Set n = ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/images/logo.gif")
With Range("c12")
t = .Top
l = .Left
End With
With n
.Top = t
.Left = l
End With
End Sub
Works OK in 2007
Ian
The above codes work fines to my EXCEL 2007. Thanks.
Chandoo:
Try 'ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert'
With ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("C:\Example.png")
.Left = ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Left
.Top = ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Top
End With
activesheet.pictures.insert "C:\Documents and Settings\Jon Peltier\Desktop\2007 stuff\insert_charts_2007.png"
Works for me in 2003 SP3 and in 2007 SP2.
Check the URL, and make sure you have internet connectivity.
What also works, and is newer (pictures.insert was supposedly deprecated in '97):
activesheet.shapes.addpicture "C:\Documents and Settings\Jon Peltier\Desktop\2007 stuff\insert_charts_2007.png", false, true, 200,200,100,100
Unfortunately you must specify dimensions (the last four arguments) and you don't necessarily know them. But the picture size is still related back to the original picture size, so you could use scaleheight and scalewidth to fix this.
Chandoo: I just re-read your post.
The code I posted works for me. However, I'm using a local picture. If you try to add a picture from the web, this won't work.
I remember solving this problem before by adding a rectangle shape first, then using the Shapes.AddPicture method to get a picture from the web.
I'll find that code and post it here.
Some more updates... The code "ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert (path)" works fine in Excel 2007 at home. Strange it failed miserably on my work laptop. Do you think this has got something to do with SP2 of MS Office 2007 or something like that?
@Ian, Jon: Thanks for the code snippets. I guess I will use my home installation of excel to do this.
Chandoo:
Try this on your work laptop:
Sub test()
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle, 50, 50, 100, 200
ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Fill.UserPicture _
"http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/images/dpwithPig6.png"
End Sub
FYI:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928983/en-us
I didn't mean to post code with a local file, because both approaches worked with an internet image as well. This is in Excel 2007 SP2.
activesheet.pictures.insert "http://peltiertech.com/images/2009-07/col_area_noblanks.png"
Jon: Looks like I have SP1 on my client machine! I wasn't paying attention.
Just checked my home computer where I have SP2, and you're right...looks like they fixed it.
I didn't even bother testing in SP1, though I could if anyone cares enough.
I'm afraid I don't have a solution, but I find it remarkable that after attaining a certain status in the Excel world, Chandoo does not need to post on an Excel discussion forum to get help for an Excel problem. Instead, he posts on his blog and all the gurus come rushing to his help.
Isn't Web 2.0 great?
Teylyn - I saw Chandoo's tweet first, and followed the link back to his blog.
@Mike.. thank you. I have seen the fill rectangle solution before posting the query here. For that matter, I have also tried the solution of embedding a browser control on a spreadsheet. both of these seemed a bit extreme. That is why I have asked it here.
But I guess I will end up using it if I had to build this in work laptop.
@Teylyn: I have thought of posting this in a forum. (Unfortunately I have not been to any excel group in the last 5 years. Last time I was active was when I built a jave based excel sheet construction solution using POI.HSSF classes of Apache... ) After searching for a few hours, I found several forum posts where others had same problem and the solution recommended (using .left and .top parameters) is not working for me. Incidentally most of these solutions are from a certain Jon Peltier 😛
I thought may be the problem is interesting for fellow blog readers. So I posted it here.
Hi,
Adapting the code in the question,
[code]
Sub InsPicture()
pPath = "http://chandoo.org/images/pointy-haired-dilbert-excel-charts-tips.png"
With ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath)
.Left = Range("a1").Left
.Top = Range("a1").Top
End With
End Sub
[/code]
Seems to work fine
Looks like it was a problem in 2007 up to SP1, which was corrected in SP2.
@Jon.. seems like the case. I just checked the version at work laptop. it is 12.0.6331.5000 (SP1).
Thank you so much every one. I really appreciate your time and suggestions in solving this.
Glad to help. I couldn't understand why something so straightforward wasn't working.
Hi All
Is there a way of inserting a motion clip eg animated gif or swf or flv?
Thks
You can insert animated GIFs by inserting them in a browser control through VBA. For other types of movies, I can guess you can insert them as clip art.
I WANT THE INSERT PICTURE BY USING COADING
so currently i was struggling same as you, chandoo, with the insert picture method in excel 2007/10 from an url and came along your thread here.
so i re-designed the code on the addshape method as mike was suggesting it and all of the sudden it works just fine.
thanks alot to you guys, you were a great help
a big salut from switzerland
Hi guys,
I need help copying and pasting an image with the path in a cell.
I leave the code.
And thank you very much!
Sub Copiarimg()
Dim pic As Picture
With ActiveSheet
Set pic = .Pictures.Insert(Range("f2").Value)
With .Range("e9:g22")
pic.Top = .Top
pic.Left = .Left
pic.Width = .Width
pic.Height = .Height
End With
End Sub
I've played around with the approaches in these comments, and the code below is what I've come up with. The ImagePath can be a local file or a URL. As Jon mentioned above, the trick is to set an arbitrary value for the width and height, then call the ScaleWidth and ScaleHeight methods afterward to reset the picture to its original size. Once the LockAspectRatio property is set, you can change the picture width and the height will automatically scale (or vice-versa).
Sub AddPictureToRange(TopLeftCellAddress As String, ImagePath As String)
Dim pic As Shape
Dim l As Single, t As Single
Dim temp As Single
l = Me.Range(TopLeftCellAddress).Left
t = Me.Range(TopLeftCellAddress).Top
temp = 10# ' arbitrary value
Set pic = Me.Shapes.AddPicture(ImagePath, msoFalse, msoTrue, l, t, temp, temp)
pic.ScaleHeight 1#, msoTrue
pic.ScaleWidth 1#, msoTrue
pic.LockAspectRatio = msoTrue
End Sub
I need some help with inserting pictures. I have an excel file with a column of item numbers next to this row I want to insert a picture of this item. The pictures are coded with the item number so I tried to insert it with one of the codes above:
Sub InsPicture()
pPath = "http://img.bricklink.com/P/80/55236.gif"
With ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath)
End With
End Sub
That worked but I need to do that for every row separtly.
So I tried in the code
pPath = "http://img.bricklink.com/P/80/"&Text(a1;"#")&".gif"
But that gives errors.
Anybody ideas?
Hi Nicholas, I used your solution in a related problem in Excel 2003 and it worked flawlessly..thank you!
Hi Mike Alexander,
Your solution with some changes was helpful in my problem in XL 2007, thanks.
Hi,
thanks all. In addition, I had a problem with multiple pictures inserting (every new picture replaced the prior one). I've changed it a bit, may be helpful..
Sub test()
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle, 50 , 50, 100, 200
ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Fill.UserPicture _
"http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/images/dpwithPig6.png"
ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Copy
ActiveSheet.Paste
End Sub
Try this instead:
Sub test()
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle, 50 , 50, 100, 200
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture _
"http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/images/dpwithPig6.png"
End Sub
Thanks to everyone, this thread has been very helpful. However, image inserting still doesn't work quite as expect for me.
While I can get a picture inserted into an Excel 2010 worksheet using either:
1) ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture...
2) ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath), and
3) Shapes.AddPicture...
unfortunately the images all insert with a display size determined not by the actual pixel dimensions of the image but by the dpi resolution.
So for example, if I insert two copies of the exact same 600x600 pixel image, one with a 300dpi resolution and the other with 72dpi, they display at vastly different sizes on screen.
While this might be intended behaviour for Excel in order to maintain a WSYWIG printing layout, I actually need a way to insert the image based on the the actual pixel dimesnsions and ignoring the dpi resolution.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Kez
Not doing an intentional bump, but realised I posted in rely to one of the repsonses here instead of to the main thread, so reposting.
=====
Thanks to everyone, this thread has been very helpful. However, image inserting still doesn’t work quite as expected for me.
While I can get a picture inserted into an Excel 2010 worksheet using any of the below methods:
1) ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture....
2) ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath), and
3) Shapes.AddPicture....
unfortunately the images all insert with a display size determined not by the actual pixel dimensions of the image but by the dpi resolution.
So for example, if I insert two copies of the exact same 600×600 pixel image, one with a 300dpi resolution and the other with 72dpi, they display at vastly different sizes in Excel on screen.
While this might be intended behaviour for Excel in order to maintain a WYSIWYG printing layout, I actually need a way to insert the images based on the the actual pixel dimesnsions and ignoring the dpi resolution.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Kez
Well, answered my own question 🙂
For those who might be interested, you can use this function:
Public Function GetPicDims(strFilePath As String, strFileName As String) As String
GetPicDims = CreateObject("Shell.Application").Namespace((strFilePath)). _
ParseName(strFileName).ExtendedProperty("Dimensions")
End Function
to get the dimensions of the image you want to insert. Then you can parse the return string and use the width and height values to add a rectangle shape of the appropraite size, like:
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle 50, 50, iWidth, iHeight
which you then fill with the picture:
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture "c:\temp\test.jpg"
This way the picture gets inserted using the pixel dimensions and the (print) resolution gets ignored.
If desired, the GetPicDims function can be made more generic to get other ExtendedProperties.
Regards
Kez