True story:
On Friday (17th April – 2015), I flew from Vizag (my town) to Hyderabad so that I can catch a flight to San Francisco to attend a conference. As I had 10 hours of overlay between the flights in Hyderabad, I checked in to a lounge area so that I can watch some sports, eat food while pretending to do work on my laptop. There was a gentleman sitting in adjacent space doing some work in Excel. As I began to compose few emails, the gentleman in next sitting space asked me what I do for living. Our conversation went like this.
Me: I run a software company
He: Oh, so you must be good with computers
Me: smiles and cringes at the stereotyping
He: What is the formula to select all the blank cells in my Excel data and highlight them in Yellow color
Mind you, he had no idea that I work in Excel. We were 2 random guys in airport lounge watching sports and eating miserable food.
Me: Well, what are you trying to do?
He: You see, I am auditing this data. I need to locate all the blank rows and set them in different color so that my staff can fill up missing information. Right now, I am selecting one row at a time and filling the colors. Is there a one step solution to this problem?
Needless to say, I showed him how to do it faster, which led to an interesting 3 hours at the lounge.
End of true story.
So today, let’s understand how to find & highlight all the blank cells in the data.
Let’s take a look at the data:
Here is a sample of data.
One important thing to keep in mind:
- This data is not structured as table.
There are 3 powerful & simple methods to find & highlight blank cells.
Method 1: Selection & Highlight approach
In this method, we just select all the blank cells in one go and fill them with yellow color.
First select the entire range of cells where you data is located. Using CTRL+Arrow keys is not going to work because of the blank cells in-between. Instead, follow this:
- Select the top-left cell of your data (say B2)
- Click and drag the little rectangular box in vertical-scrollbar all the way down.
- Hold Shift and click on the very last cell (bottom-right)
Now that all the data is selected,
- Press F5 and click on Special
- Choose blanks. Click ok.
- This will select only the blank cells.
- Fill yellow (or other) color by clicking the fill icon and selecting the color
- Done!
Here is a quick demo of this:
Method 2: Filter approach
The above approach (selection & highlight) works fine if you care about blank cells anywhere. What if you just want to find & highlight only rows have blanks in a certain column. Say, you want to highlight all rows where comments are empty.
In this case,
- Select all data using the steps in method 1.
- Press CTRL+Shift+L to activate filters
- Keep the selection on & Filter the column you want to show only blank values
- Now fill yellow color
- Done!
Method 3: Conditional formatting approach
Both method 1 & method 2 have a draw back. If your data changes, you must clean up & highlight again.
This is where conditional formatting shines. You can tell Excel to highlight cells only if they are blank. Once some data is typed in (or copy pasted or connection refreshed), the color will go away automatically.
To set up conditional formatting,
- Select all the data
- Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > New rule
- Click on “Format only cells that contain”
- Change “Cell Value” option to “Blanks”
- Set up formatting you want by clicking on Formatting button
- Click ok and you are done!
This will automatically highlight all blank cells in your favorite color.
Oh wait, what if I want to highlight entire row if a certain column is blank?
You can use conditional formatting in such cases too. Follow these steps.
Assuming you want to check for blanks in Column G and your first data point is in G4.
- Select all the data (just data, no headers)
- Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > New rule
- Select rule type as “Use a formula…”
- Type the formula as
=LEN($G4)=0 - Set up formatting you want
- Click ok and you are done.
Wait a sec, What is the LEN($G4)=0 thing?
LEN() formula tells us what is the length of a cell’s content. So if a cell is blank, LEN(cell) would be 0.
$G4 is a mixed reference style. This way, even when conditional formatting is checking other columns, it still looks in column G to see if that is really empty.
Related: An introduction to Excel cell references.
Bonus tips:
Q) How to highlight if either of column G or H are blank?
A) =OR(LEN($G4)=0, LEN($H4)=0)
Q) How to highlight if both column G & H are blank?
A) =AND(LEN($G4)=0, LEN($H4)=0)
Go ahead and whack them blank cells.
How do you deal with blank cells?
Do you sneak up on an unsuspecting fellow passenger in an airport lounge and ask them how to deal with the blank problem? Do you manually select the blank cells and deal with them one at a time? Or do you use some ninja level trickery to fix the blanks?
Go ahead and tell me your blank story in the comments.
Fill the blanks in your Excel knowledge
If you have gaps in your Excel know-how, then you have come to right place. Use below links and fill those blanks.
14 Responses to “How to Add your Macros to QAT or Excel toolbars?”
We have only just got excel 2007 so this is helping me navigate my way through the differences cheers.
For Macro's i always add a Command Button, rename it something obvious, change the colour of it and finally add the following to its View Code section.
Application.Run "MAcro1"
This way anyone opening the file knows what to do if i ever win the lottery and dont make it in 🙂
Hi,
Good article. But I have this problem.
1) Customized QAT with a macro. Macro name = MacroX
2) Runs OK from original location (e.g. C:\TestLoaction1\TestFile.xls)
3) Copy past file to new location (e.g. C:\TestLoaction2\TestFile.xls)
Menu button now fails:
Cannot run the macro "C:\TestLoaction1\TestFile.xls'!MacroX' The macro may not be available in this workbook...
Of course the code is there, and macros are enabled.
Could get it to work after deleting and recreating macro custom buttons. So have to re-assign macro to QAT button every time I move the file?
If I put a form button on he worksheet and assign the macro to that, it's location independent.
Any ideas?
Thanks
@Ron
What you have said is correct
Macros within a worksheet are stored within the worksheet and hence follow it.
Macros referenced by a button in the QAT or elsewhere are locaed in a file and if that file is moved the linkages don't follow.
The easiest way around this is to store all your macros in a location that doesn't move and is in fact reloaded everytime that Excel starts and that is called the Personal.xlsx/b file.
These are refered to several time at Chandoo.org or have a read of
http://www.rondebruin.nl/personal.htm
or
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/deploy-your-excel-macros-from-a-central-file-HA001087296.aspx
In Excel 2003 and prior versions, a button added to the Toolbar maintained a DYNAMIC link to the file (e.g. Personal.xlsb) holding the assigned macro, such that if the file was relocated for any reason (by using Excel's native Save As command rather than just moving it via Windows Explorer), the link between the button and the file was updated.
I expected the same to occur with Excel 2007+, but alas, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have removed another feature useful to advanced users (just as they did by removing the ability to design your own buttons)!!
So having just done some reorganisation of my files, I now have to remove and recreate every friggin macro button on my QAT (I have lots) - what a pain in the proverbial!!
Hi Hui,
Thanks for the help, that's really useful.
1) The macros I'm adding are for one specific Excel application, so I really wanted the macros to follow the file
2) I didn't want to have to pass other files around too and have users installing those - either Personal.xlsx/b or as an Add-In.
3) I realise now that the QAT additions will appear for other Excel workbooks in which I don't want the macros available.
So, it looks like I need to keep it local, by using a button on the worksheet. Unless you can suggest any way of adding to menus just for a specific workbook.
Thanks again for your help. Great site, so I'll be signing up for the emails.
Ron
I know I'm a little late jumping on this post, but wondering if anyone knows how to add a UDF to the QAT? I've saved my UDF in my personal workbook, but it does not show up in my list when I choose Macros when customizing my QAT. Suggestions? Thanks!!
@Cheryl: UDFs cannot be accessed like Macros. You can use them from other macros or from worksheet cells as formulas...
@David: If you save your macros file and then install it as an add-in then it will be always available for you.
The instructions work great when you are creating a new file, and it is still open. I find that I can't access macros after I've saved a file as an xlam and closed it. When I reopen the xlam, either by browsing to it, or by having it set to open as an addin using Excel Options, the macros are no longer available in the macros list when I go to edit the QAT. Any way around that?
[...] Add this macro as a button to Quick Access Toolbar [...]
I need to create a button that will run a macro. Once you click the button it needs to open up a browser asking you to select a report/file. Once you select the file, it will run the macro on the selected file and then save it as a new report with a name and the current date. I created the macro to sort/modify the report but I do not know how to do what I mentioned above. I hope this makes sense.
I'm having trouble adding a macro to the QAT. I've done everything up to step 5 but my macro isn't showing up. What am I doing wrong?
[...] Add Macros to Quick Access Toolbar (works in Excel 2003 & above) [...]
Hi,
Thank you for the explanation. Very useful for a recent switcher from office 2003 to office 2010.
My follow-up question is: in Excel (or ppt) 2010, can you customize the macro button that you put in the QAT?
In office 2003, once you chose the custom button for your Macro, you could then edit pixel by pixel the said button.
For instance, I've created 2 Macros in PPT that are converting all my slides to either English or French language, so I'd like one button to show EN and the other FR... that would be more meaningful that any of the possible "custom" office 2010 buttons
I read all the post and one important aspect to the QAT was never mentioned. That is, you have a macro driven worksheet that you want to share with other. You have customized the QAT with two icons to run the macros (VBA programs in reality). However, when the others receive the workbook, the icons are no where to be found. It's my understanding those "customized buttons" have been saved to an outside file, Excel.qat. QUESTION: Could one simply attach that file to your email, along with the worksheet, and tell the recipients to copy that file to correct location on their computer - C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office|\
Would the customize macro buttons then appear in the worksheet and, more importantly, work? Thanks for your thoughtfulness and thanks for well written instructions Chandoo!
MortW