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CP031: Invisibility Tricks – How to make things disappear in Excel?
Chandoo.org Podcast Sessions - 3 comments
In the 31st session of Chandoo.org podcast, let’s disappear.
What is in this session?
Spreadsheets are complex things. They have outputs, calculation tabs, inputs, VBA code, from controls, charts, pivot tables and occasional picture of hello kitty. But when it comes to making a workbook production ready, you may want to hide away few things so it looks tidy.
That is our topic for this podcast session.
In this podcast, you will learn
- Quick announcements first anniversary of our podcast etc.
- Hiding cells,
- Hiding rows & columns
- Hiding chart data points
- On/off effect with form controls, conditional formatting
- Hiding sheets
- Making objects, charts, pictures disappear
- Disabling grid-lines
- Turning off formula bar
- Getting rid of headings
- Hiding things in print
Listen to this session
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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Click here to download the MP3 file.
Links & Resources mentioned in this podcast
Hiding cell content
- How to hide cell contents using custom cell formatting
- Conditional hiding examples
- Introduction to custom cell formatting
Hiding chart data points / series
Hiding objects, shapes & charts
Hiding things in Print
Transcript of this session:
Download this podcast transcript [PDF]
What is your favorite Excel magic trick?
My favorite tricks are using formulas + form controls to make charts dynamic, using conditional formatting, using VBA to animate stuff.
What about you? What magic you do to impress your boss & colleagues? Please share your tips & ideas in the comments section.
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Hello Awesome...
My name is Chandoo. Thanks for dropping by. My mission is to make you awesome in Excel & your work. I live in Wellington, New Zealand. When I am not F9ing my formulas, I cycle, cook or play lego with my kids. Know more about me.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Visit Excel for Beginner or Advanced Excel pages to learn more or join my online video class to master Excel.
Thank you and see you around.
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At Chandoo.org, I have one goal, "to make you awesome in Excel & Power BI". I started this website in 2007 and today it has 1,000+ articles and tutorials on data analysis, visualization, reporting and automation using Excel and Power BI. 
3 Responses to “CP031: Invisibility Tricks – How to make things disappear in Excel?”
Excellent podcast.
I hadn't thought so thoroughly about invisibility, and I really like the set-up where you point out that the users really aren't interested in looking at the engine. They just want to go for the ride.
[…] his latest podcast, Chandoo explains how to make things disappear in Excel. I hope he also tells us how to make them re-appear! You can also download the transcript, in case […]
A little added note on hiding worksheets. After hiding a worksheet you can right click the worksheet tabs area and select unhide. This shows you the currently hidden worksheets and allows you to unhide them. If you want to hide the worksheet entirely; open up VBA select the worksheet and then in the properties box (press F4) you can set the visibility as "Very Hidden". Now the worksheet won't appear in the unhide box.
And one final "invisibility trick" - you can hide items from the name manager. For example, you might use lots of named ranges for a dashboard but don't want to deliver an apparently cluttered spreadsheet to a client, so just hide them using VBA:
ActiveWorkbook.Names("MyName").Visible = False
You need VBA to hide (and unhide) names like this but you don't need to save the spreadsheet as macro enabled. Once they're set you can delete the code.