Displaying items by tag: addin

A spate of Excel crashes in the office was recently brought to my attention. While not all of the crashes were attributed to the use of my addin, it did seem as though the chances of crashing were increased when my addin was present. This seemed to be related to the way the addin was loading; a typical Excel addin is loaded as a fully fledged addin (see this article for more on Excel addins) while I was using a more user friendly option, the XLSTARTUP folder.

To paraphrase Johnny Nash, "I can see clearly now the grey is gone."  The grey in question being the mysterious greyed out ribbon even when a workbook is open in Excel.

What's new on the menu?  Quite a bit actually, with the new Excel ribbon based interface for a start.

The old menu driven interface for the addin has been replaced with the user friendly Office style ribbon interface.

The new ribbon interface for Ian's Excel Addin

This function is used to convert a numerical value into its equivalent textual representation, e.g. 123 becomes One Hundred and Twenty Three.  Used in the format of =textamount(value[,"MajorCurrency"][,"MinorCurrency"]) where:

Items under the Special Characters menu are used to insert special characters.

Items under the Numeric Functions menu are used to manipulate values or formulae.

Items under the Text Functions menu are used to manipulate text.

March 2015 update:  The menu style interface has been superseded by the Office style ribbon interface.  See this article for more information.

While earlier versions of Microsoft Excel allowed a developer to add their own menu to the menu bar relatively easily, the newer versions have thrown a bit of a spanner in the works when it comes to creating custom menus.  It does not surprise me then that users often ask "where do I find Ian's Excel Addin after I have installed it?  Fortunately, the answer to that is relatively simple.

This is the online user manual for Ian's Excel Addin.  This will be a work in progress for the foreseeable future.

Over the years working as a Quantity Surveyor, I discovered that Microsoft Excel, while a wonderful tool, lacked certain functions.  In order to overcome these shortcomings, I developed custom procedures and functions to enhance my Excel experience and productivity.  Instead of keeping these tools to myself, I have decided to share them with anyone who is interested in trying them out.  Your feedback on the addin will be appreciated and will assist in the further development of this product.