We can select a few cells in Excel and quickly see their count, sum etc. in the status bar. Ever wanted to customize the status bar to show something else, say difference? You can use VBA add-ins with application level events to achieve this. In this Example, learn how to customize status bar with Excel VBA. We will see how to set up a class module, application event in our personal macro add-in.
Note: This is a reasonably advanced VBA example. If you are a VBA newbie, start with FREE Excel VBA Crash Course, and come back when you are ready.
If you just want to show difference in a specific worksheet…
Then you could use Worksheet_SelectionChange() Event in that sheet to set Application.StatusBar to what you need.
But our problem is a bit more complicated. We want to customize status bar to show difference in any Excel file.
Using Excel Add-in to customize status bar
Anytime you want to use a macro or automate things in multiple files, you need to create Excel add-ins. While this sounds complicated. making an add-in is rather simple. You just create the necessary VBA code and save the file as “Excel Add-in” type. Once such a file is saved, you can then install this add-in using Developer ribbon > Excel Add-in button. Now, you can use the add-in functionality from any open file.
For the purpose of our status bar customization, we will use Personal Macro workbook.
If you do not yet have a personal macro workbook, go make one. Refer to above link for instructions.
Step by step instructions to add status bar changing code
Step 1: Open Excel, go to Visual Basic Editor (ALT+F11) and locate your personal macro add-in file.
Step 2: Insert a class module. In the personal macro file, insert a class module. Name this module as clsApp.
Paste below code in the class.
Public WithEvents app As ApplicationThis adds a variable (property) called app to the class clsApp.
Step 3: Insert a module. In this module, we will write necessary code to make an object instance of the clsApp.
Paste this code.
Option Explicit
'code originally from https://jkp-ads.com/Articles/buildexceladdin05.asp
'Variable to hold instance of class clsApp
Dim mcApp As clsApp
Public Sub Init()
'Reset mcApp in case it is already loaded
Set mcApp = Nothing
'Create a new instance of clsApp
Set mcApp = New clsApp
'Pass the Excel object to it so it knows what application
'it needs to respond to
Set mcApp.app = Application
End SubWhat this code is doing? As annotated in the comments, this code is simply to initialize the mcApp variable with current Excel application.
Step 4: Go back to class module and add app level event. Now, let’s go back to the class module and click on on the drop-down above and select “app” and select the event SheetSelectionChange.
This adds a blank event at app level for SheetSelectionChange.
Paste below code.
Private Sub app_SheetSelectionChange(ByVal Sh As Object, ByVal Target As Range)
Application.StatusBar = ""
On Error GoTo Finish
If Selection.Cells.Count = 2 Then
Application.StatusBar = "Diff: " & (Selection.Cells(1) - Selection.Cells(2))
Else
Application.StatusBar = ""
End If
Finish:
End SubWhat’s going on here: This code simply checks with Selection has two cells. If so, it sets the statusbar to the word “Diff:” followed by actual difference.
In all other cases (including any errors), the status bar is set to empty (which resets it).
Step 5: Go to ThisWorkbook on the add-in file add code to init
Finally, we want to load mcApp (our instance for the Excel Application) whenever Excel is loaded. To do this, go to ThisWorkbook on the personal add-in file, double click on it and add the Workbook Open event.
Paste below code in there.
'code originally from https://jkp-ads.com/Articles/buildexceladdin05.asp
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Application.OnTime Now, "'" & ThisWorkbook.FullName & "'!Init"
End SubThat is all. We have now created an application level event listener that monitors any selection changes across all open workbooks. If user selects two cells, then it will display the difference between them in the status bar.
Here is an illustration of the chain of actions that happen
Show cell difference in status bar – Video Tutorial
I made a video explaining the entire code and demoed the result. Watch it below if you are still hazy about the process. You can also watch this on my YouTube channel.
References & Resources to learn more…
Big thanks to Jan Karel Pieterse & late Chip Pearson for excellent info on class module driven application event listeners.
- Application Events in Excel [cpearson]
- Application Events as part of Excel Add-in [jkp-ads]
Setting up Personal Macro add-in Workbook
More info on Worksheet_SelectionChange event
Learn Excel VBA
- Excel VBA Crash Course – FREE basic course
- Excel VBA Online Classes – Paid full length course
This article is inspired from a question posted in my Facebook group by Istiyak.
23 Responses to “Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA”
Its possible to display up to 4 text values.
Have a look at the screen shot of an example that I had posted way back at the EHA and figure out how its done !
http://tinypic.com/r/muzywk/6
With Excel 2010 you can use Conditional Formatting to apply custom number formats which can display text. (In older versions you can only modify text color and cell background color, but not number formats.) Using CF allows for an even larger number of different display values.
[...] Display text values in Pivot Tables without VBA [...]
Hey,
Thanks, this helps. But how do you do it for multiple values where there is a huge amount of non repeating text?
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn't a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn’t a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
[...] Pivot Tables take tables of data and allow the user to summarise and consolidate the data at the same time. This is a great and very fast method of analysis but is restricted to handling mathematical functions on the value field resulting in numerical summaries. – read more [...]
[…] Read more here: Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA […]
There is a very good way actually for handling text inside values area.
First you create a special column on the very left side and call it ID, and put unique ID (numbers only), and then create a pivot table with:
Row Labels and Column labels as you like, and in the Values labels use the unique ID number.
Move the unique ID number (copy paste) somewhere to the right and use vlookup to load the data you need using the ID as reference.
It is a bit longer way but for me it works perfectly to combine values as you like in any moment.
hope helps.
Regards,
Jon
Thank you! I finally understand pivot tables thanks to your clear, concise explanations and examples.
Good Day. This is exactly what i have been looking for. However when i try it on my pivot table or even when i try to recreate this exercise using the sample worksheet, i get this error:
"Microsoft Excel cannot use the number format you typed. Try using one of the built-in number formats."
Same thing here, Excel quite did not like the format in my PowerPivot. Any clues as to what may be going on? Thanks.
I have the same thing happening on my end. I'm running a normal pivot table on a .xlsm file.
@Danzi
What format did you use?
can you post the file ?
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C
MR.A CFVDE2458T
MR.Z AAVCR12548C
MR.X AAAAC1254T
MR.Z AADCD245T
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C 1000
MR.A CFVDE2458T 2000
MR.Z AAVCR12548C 5451
MR.X AAAAC1254T 45564
MR.Z AADCD245T 4500
how to get pivot tabe so i get PAN no. against Name.
I found an easy way to get text values in pivot table.
I create an other worksheet in wich each cell has a formula that copy the pivot table. The trick is that the formula does a lookup for the numbers in the pivot table.
The formula looks like that:
=IF(ISNUMBER(table!A1);VLOOKUP(table!A1;Code!$A$1:$B$65;2);IF(ISBLANK(table!A1);" ";table!A1))
Code is a worksheet where there is a liste of text /numbers correspondance.
As a bonus The new sheet is easier to format
Additional trick:
In my case, i encoded differents codeid with a power(2, codeId-1) so that summing then is equivalent to concatenate them.
1-A
2-B
4-C
8-D
yields :
5 - AC
14 - BCD
Hi
I want to ask if pivot can display dates in pivot field. As in a column i have customers and in row different items i want to know there last purchase date. anyone help in this??
Hello Guys, Need your help
I am doing some analysis of the cycle time of the product i.e how much time a product takes from manufacturing to the central warehouse.
I have batch numbers for the product and against them i have to pull out the diff. dates
Like the base date is from where the manufacturing start. So i have the batch number,against it's manuf. date. Now i have to pull out the date when it was quality released.
I have the quality released data but the data have duplicates, like i will have two dates or may be three for the same batch. So my main objective is to pull out the date which is latest among them.
BATCH NO. DATE of Mfg. DATE of Quality release
A1 12/4/2014 (HERE I HAVE TO PULL value)
Next Sheet
BATCH NO. DATE of Quality Release
A1 14/5/2014
a2 23/5/2016
A1 12/5/2014
A1 13/6/2014
From this sheet i have to pull up the latest date format of date here is dd/mm/yyy
TIA
[…] needed to present text instead of counts in a pivot table value column. Here is an excellent resource for Excel manipulation, in addition to an overview of pivot […]
This is great thank you.
Wow!!! Excellent!! It helped me a lot.
I am developing training tracking sheet for 200 employees with training completed date. Each employee will be attending 25 courses. How to indicate actual dates in pivot table value field.