Lets take a break from all the Excel trickery. Today I want to share a joyous news with you all.
Today I want to take you back in time, all the way to 1987. I want to share a story with you. So, sit back, sip some coffee and enjoy.
Year 1987 and aftermath
My dad is working as a sales manager back then. He is a quintessential salesman. Busy, flamboyant, confident, tall & fun. I remember him very vaguely now. But I remember having lots of good time at family dinners (we are a family of 5 – my younger brother, mom, dad, dad’s mom & myself). I remember riding his scooter on trips to my school, family clinic or just around the corner.
Then, as if someone shook us from a dream and took everything away, my dad suddenly passed away in the summer of that year. He had a fatal liver failure.
It was a big shock for all of us, especially my mom, who had been married to him for 7 years. My mother studied only up to Class 12. She did not have any job skills back then. On top, she is burdened with 2 little kids (my brother is 5 and I was 6 at that time). We did not have money, house or any other type of assets.
So we moved to my mother’s mother house. My grand parents were kind enough to support us in those dark years.
With in a few years we started getting regular pension, thanks to my dad’s life insurance. This gave a sense of financial security and freedom to us. But, we still felt one gnawing pain. We did not have a home to live.
Between 1990 and 2006, we stayed in 8 different houses. This constant shifting & lack of security bothered my brother and me very much.We decided that, we would get a house as soon as we can.
In fact, I even said to myself that I would not get married before owning a house.
Fast forward to 2000s
So I wanted to own a house, before building a family. But then, I met Jo, we dated for a few years, realized that we are perfect for each other. We could not imagine living without each other. So we got married in year 2007. There was still no house.
Meanwhile, housing prices kept on raising and made my dream almost impossible to achieve without a back breaking mortgage loan. So I kept saying myself, “let me work hard for a few years, save money and then, we will get a house.”
In year 2009, we became parents to a set of lovely, naughty and adorable twins. Nakshatra (girl) & Nishanth (boy) transformed our lives in ways we could not imagine. While the joys of parenting are overwhelming, I was worried all the time about the house. “What if something bad happens and we end up without a home.”
Still we kept saving and living frugally.
Enter 2011 – In search of a house
Since we are against loans (see note 1), we waited until we have enough funds to purchase the house we want. Finally, by March 2011, we reached that stage. So we started looking for a suitable house.
We went to property fairs, told everyone in our immediate social circles, approached agents, pored thru classifieds and online ads. Very soon, we are very tired and felt hopeless.
Good houses almost always have exorbitant prices
Bad or poor houses are over priced too.
We almost gave up and decided to live in a rented house for few more years. But then, a neighbor told us about a house that is up for sale, in the locality where we live. I went and checked it out on the same day. I liked it. It seemed like a house we could call home.
Few days later, we visited the house again. This time with Jo & kids. We liked the space and calm neighborhood. We discussed with a few relatives & friends and made an offer to the owners. After some negotiations, we purchased the house on 26th July, this year.
Then we started renovating the house. It took 2 and half months to get everything done. We have remodeled the kitchen, done wood-work (cupboards), changed flooring, added a car park, store room, upgraded some of the electrical & plumbing fixtures.
Finally, we moved in to the house last Saturday (15th October) and loving it ever since.
Details & Photos of our home
- Total land area: 350 Sq. Yards (292 sq. mts)
- House carpet area: 1000 Sft (92 sq. mts)
- Rooms: 2 bedrooms, living, kitchen, storage, 2 bath & toilets
- Purchase price: ~ $100k
- Location: Vizag
These photos were taken on October 3rd, when we had the traditional Gruha Pravesham (it is like house warming celebration). So you so almost no furniture. The photo of my office room is taken today (October 20th).
Our Living Room
This is our Kitchen
My Office Room (doubles up as guest bedroom too)
Our Living room from Kitchen
Entering our House (Gruha Pravesham) with a Ribbon Cut
Jo and I in our Kitchen
For more pics, checkout New Home Set on my Flickr page.
Thank you & Thanks to Excel
As we live, breathe, enjoy and sleep in this home, I could not thank enough for your support in making this happen. I am so glad you identify with the mission of Chandoo.org and spread a good word about it. I am so humbled that you support us by joining our training programs, purchasing our e-books & products. I am so thankful to you for spending time with us everyday, learning & sharing new things.
Thank you.
I am also thankful to MS Excel, the powerful, awesome tool that transformed my life. It gave me the courage to quit a comfortable job and embark on an exciting journey of running a small business. Thank you so much Microsoft & Excel for being awesome.
One last thing
There is a reason why I am writing this today instead of last Saturday, when we moved in to the new home. Today (Oct 20) is also my birthday. As I celebrate my 29th birthday, I feel immensely grateful, content and happy for the journey so far. The fact that I can share my life, knowledge and mistakes with you all makes me very lucky. I hope the coming years are just as wonderful for you and me.
PS: because of the house renovation work during last 8 weeks, I could not reply to as many emails as I want to. So if you are one of those who mailed me and never heard back, please resend and I will get back to you at the earliest.
More Personal Stories
If you would like to learn more about the personal side of Chandoo.org, have a read thru these,
- Story of Chandoo.org Start-up
- Thank you Excel, We have a car
- How Excel Transformed my life (story of 1 year of running Chandoo.org)
- Christmas & New Year Wishes – 2011
- Meet Nakshatra & Nishanth – our kids
- I am Dad!!!
Added later:
Note 1: As some of you pointed, I did have a mortgage loan (which has 2 more months on it). I borrowed this year 2007 for an apartment (condo) I purchased for my brother. Even though that house is not for me, I still pay the loan as I love my brother and want to support him.
Note2: Our new home is in Vizag, the same place where we have been living for last 2 years.
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
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This is GREAT!
How should the code be changed in order to tun once for all worksheets in a workbook?