Can somebody help me with Excel?

Question

I have a couple questions about this situation at work. My predecessor left a whole bunch of data on Excel spreadsheets that now need to be merged. The categories of data are identical, but they are on seperate pages. My questions:

1. They used the "!" command to pull names from the first page to the suceeding pages. If I add a column or row, do I have to do this on all pages?

2. If I sort the data on one page, will all the pages be sorted?

3. Would it be easier to cut and paste the data into a new spreadsheet? There are around 700 records I need and each record has around 40 columns, so I'm thinking is it less work to merge the old spreadsheets or just bite the bullet and redo the entire thing?

Oh, and each spreadsheet has 7 pages of data, 20-30 records, and there are 20+ spreadsheets.

k, i just tried to merge and it's a page by page process. I may as well do the cut and paste.

Thanks.

Answer 1

it would probably be easier to cut and paste to a new spreadsheet.

Answer 2

1. Probably yes. If you add a column on sheet 1 and need to display it on sheet 2, the data will not appear unless you add the reference.

2. If you sort the data on a source page (where the data is entered), it will be different on all destination pages (which reference the source page). If the order of the destination fields and the way that they are referenced is compatible with the order of the source fields, then you may get a useful result. However, if a source page is ordered by last name and a destination page is ordered by employee number, it will be a big mess.

3. I would definitely leave the existing spreadsheet workbook just like it is and make a complete copy to perform whatever adjustments are required. Without knowing how much change you need to do, I cannot advise which way to go from there.
For just a few small changes, I would attempt to merge the old. You will need to eventually understand the grand design of this workbook.

Answer 3

I have some limited experience with Excel -- there may be a better way to do it but I can only tell you what I'd do in your situation:

(1) As far as I know, you will have to do this on every page -- have you tried it yet to see what happens? However, just use copy and paste instead of retyping it every time (I know, small consolation when you have 700 pages)
(2) You will have to sort the data on every page but you should be able to repeat the process fairly quickly. Do you know anything about macros? Your predecessor may have created a macro that does this already (sorts data on all pages). Check the "help" section for more info on macros.
(3) That's really up to you. I have succesfully modified several sheets I inherited to my liking, but it did take a lot of grunt work. Excel is so complex -- there is always a faster, better way, but unless you wrote the program yourself you probably can't remember all of them.

Hope that gets you started.

Answer 4

You can add a row or column to all of the pages in a spreadsheet by right clicking on one of the sheets at the bottom then highlight "select all sheets". When you choose that, whatever you do to the sheet your own will be done to all of the other sheets. Make sure you turn it off when you're done! You do that by right clicking and highlighting "ungroup sheets".

You should sort one page at a time just to be sure it's done properly.

Answer 5

i would probably Bite the bullet and redo it because it would take awhile to string it together