Watch StickyKeys Excell!!!!

[stickykeys633]

I'm applying for a job that requires extensive MS Excel knowledge. I lied and said I had some. Okay, not a total lie, but like... what's a macros? Yes I'm serious! See, you tell me you want a chart that totals something and then averages it and looks good I can do it. You tell me to run a circular loop differential and create macros I'm

Comments

[simplecity2htwn]

You know when you perform 6 or 7 steps to accomplish something in Excel (i.e move this over here, add 7 to it, change the color, then copy it over here, blah blah blah).... a macro is a compilation of all those actions so that they can be performed in a single keystroke.

[stickykeys633]

NICE! Hmm, and I can "record" several of these for future use? How do I call a certain one? That's amazing!

Sweetie, they want to you program in Visual Basic!

[amai_unmei]

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but unless you've learned programming languages before, I wouldn't try to swing it. Macros are no joke!

Besides, they should be offering programmer-level pay for that kind of work ...

Re: Sweetie, they want to you program in Visual Basic!

[stickykeys633]

I've learned C++ but that was years ago. No, I think it's simple charts and graphs which is fine, but I need to match the lingo with the actions.

And the pay is PHAT!

[redcoast]

Kind of a dangerous feature, actually. You can record actions and order Word to replay them a specified number of times. I once wrote one to change the gender of everybody in a story. It was pretty extensive, actually. But also this feature has been exploited by some malicious programmers and stuff.

[stickykeys633]

Oooh, more info on using them in Word and stuff. How do you write a macro? I learned how to do simple ones in excel except I'm using open office which is funny. Odd thing is I can't get it to work from spreadsheet to spreadsheet doing certain tasks.

[redcoast]

Oh, it varies from program to program. I don't have Word, so I can't go look for it myself, but it should be in the documentation for the program.

[stickykeys633]

Ooh! Thank you girl! And I talked with the woman a little more and I think the bulk of it is "If you know what Excel is you're ahead of the curve". My homeboy came by last night and showed me a few nifty formulas and gave me some great online resources.

I'm so excited! The pay is PHAT!

[xpashax]

Macros in MS Office are done in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications!), which is Visual Basic with it's hands tied. It's not hard to do if you took and understood a class in C++. If you get the concept of creating a variable, assigning information to it, and manipulating it, then you'll be able to pick up macros.

Your best bet is to google for "Excel Macro Tutorial" and try several of the links on the first couple pages until you find one that explains them in a way you understand.

For what it's worth, I largely agree with tressiemc, Excel does most of what you want to do already. I've only used VBA in Excel once, to change the background color of cells based on the value of the cell.

VBA sees more use in MS Access, you can practically write your own little program in Access with VBA using the database in the background, you can even make it look like it isn't Access that they're using. But using VBA at that level is a little more difficult, probably not beyond you, but would certainly be considered "programmer work".

[stickykeys633]

Yes, I talked to her more and I think the job entails more maintanence, and some easy set up.

She told me the last girl was an excel wizard but almost to the point of doing too much. I told her if she let me know exactly what she wanted I would produce results.

She seemed very satisfied. This job pays $3.00 more per hour! EEEEE!!!

[xpashax]

Ah, job security through obscurity. ;-)

It's definitely easier to alter code than to create it when you're not too familiar with the language.